


Play it by Ear

by Reivalk



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: A bunch of miscellaneous one-shots, Clone Angst, Hand Jobs, Impromptu trips to diners and bookstores, In rough chronological order, Lots of sarcasm, M/M, Massages, Mental Health Issues, Past Sexual Abuse, Shotgunning, Slow Burn, drunk makeouts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-15 09:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10553818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reivalk/pseuds/Reivalk
Summary: A collection of snapshots from a budding partnership. Rating will go up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have a couple of stray ideas for shorter one-shot type fics with these two so I want to collect them all into one easily organized place. Or at least, I will try to. There is one idea in particular that I would like to stand on its own since it's a 2-parter but I'm not sure yet. 
> 
> This chapter is a bit more rushed, and less polished than the rest, which I will make sure will be up to my usual standards. :)
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!~

**((2018 A/N: This chapter is a short blip of an idea and isn't at all indicative of the quality of the rest of the story. Ch 2 and onwards are where the real effort has gone.))**

 

Dave and Hal were sitting at their table after lunch on a slow workday. Hal was checking his messages while Dave was reading a book and sipping on coffee. Sandwich crusts lay forgotten on plates pushed towards the center of the table.

Hal pursed his lips as a question that had been bouncing around in his mind for the past week surfaced.

“Hey, Snake?”

“Hmm.”

“Can I ask you a… personal question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” Hal said. Dave glanced up from his coffee cup and leaned back in his chair, looking at Hal apprehensively.

“Okay?”

“Why did you and Meryl break up? Sorry if the wound is still fresh or anything, I just… was curious.”

“Nahh, that’s not an issue anymore. We just… fought a lot, I guess. Wanted different things in life.” Dave answered.

“Fought a lot?”

“Arguments. Shouting matches, she would also throw shit at me if she was really pissed.” Dave said, smirking to himself. “I do appreciate that she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind though. It’s nice to not have people scared of you for once.”

Hal flinched at that last sentence before Dave flicked a breadcrumb at him.

“Lighten up, Nerd. That wasn’t a jab at you. You’re… different.”

Hal grinned and shook his head. “Different how? You know you can be pretty scary no matter who you're talking to.”

“Whatever. You’re afraid of everything.” Another breadcrumb hit his arm.

“Meryl always seemed pretty sure of herself to me, at least on the surface,” Hal continued, ignoring him. “Usually people who have more self-confidence tend to be the ones who yell the most while angry.”

“Yeah, you’re right, She was definitely a screamer.”

Hal tried and failed to temper his facial expression but the corners of his mouth definitely twitched.. He looked up to see Dave raising an eyebrow because _of course_ he noticed, noticing small details was his _thing_. Hal ducked his head back into his laptop to avoid eye contact.

“Ah, Snake, I don’t know if that word means what you think it means.”

“Are you sure?” Hal looked up to see Dave holding his coffee up to his mouth, attempting to hide this gigantic shit-eating grin. There was a pause.

“Cause, I’m pretty sure I know what that word me-”

“-STOP. Don’t. I get it.” Hal blurted out, before he thunked his head onto the table in front of him as his face and ears grew hot. He heard David begin to wheeze with laughter while hitting his fist against the table.

“Would it seriously kill you to not think about sex for five seconds?” Hal grumbled as he got up from the table to get as far away from his partner and the accompanying mental images as possible. “Swear you’re in god damn middle school…”

“You were the one who said you ‘wanted to know me better’,” Dave called back in a sing-song tone.

“I take it back. Go back to being an untouchable scary legend. Dave is fired, I’m keeping Snake.” Hal said sarcastically, smiling. An entire breadcrust hit the back of his head before he could close his bedroom door.

—

When he fell asleep at his computer that night, he awoke to a still-warm cup of coffee with a notecard leaning against it that read in a nearly illegible all-caps scrawl -

“YOURE DIFFERENT FROM MERYL+OTHERS CUZ YOU DIDNT RUN WHEN YOU SAW BOOZE PTSD DEPRSSN ETC. INSTEAD YOU TRIED TO HELP + ACCEPTED ME. I APPRECIATE THAT.

ALSO SNAPPING NECKS FOR A LIVING AGAIN IS FUN.  -S.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even after a successful mission, stress and fear can linger.

There was a sound of keys jangling before the apartment door swung open. It bounced off the jamb and began its arc backwards, hitting Dave’s elbow as he blocked it and felt for the lightswitch with his other hand. The fixture on the ceiling buzzed to life and Dave immediately squinted as the light assaulted his senses, turning it off again and opting for the lamp on a nearby table instead. He tossed the keys onto the table and winced at the sound they made, cursing to himself as he passed a hand up his face. His fingers reached the soft cotton of his bandana and he slipped it off, depositing it on the table as well. Dave managed to reach the living room chair and collapsed into it, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

Mission accomplished.

Peaceful darkness would have greeted him if it wasn’t for the flickering radar map that insistently hung in the right corner of his visual field, the lines were slowly wiggling more and more as the dose of nanomachines in his body began to wear out. Dave felt his heart-rate begin to spike as the effect of adrenaline on his body exaggerated and breathed out a shaky sigh as he waited for this to end.

Not having an officially trained medic in their tiny, 2-month-old organization was proving to be difficult, but they would manage.

The less-than-medical-grade cocktail in his and Hal’s home-made nanomachines was now more or less doing a good job for him during a mission, but Ideally there was supposed to be a slow, steady comedown. Instead he was rocketing up into “sensory overload” territory before its effects petered out. Right now he felt like he could practically _smell_ _the drywall_.

Dave wiped at his forehead and got up when on his fuzzy radar he saw the yellow dot that represented his work partner slowly make its way out of the parking lot and up the green-outlined stairs. He went to the door, opening it for Hal who side-stepped into the room, holding a box filled with extension cords and cables with a keyboard shoved in diagonally to fit. 

“Lemme get that.” Dave went and took the box, setting it down on the floor as quietly as he could. Hal muttered a ‘Thanks’ and dusted off his hands on his jeans, peering up at him when Dave stood back up. Hal creased his brows in worry.

“Your pupils are gigantic.”

“All the better to see you with.” Dave said, grinning. Hal snorted and moved to retrieve the keys off the table.

“Need any help getting the computer and table out?” Dave asked as he turned to open the door again. He felt Hal put a finger on his shoulder.

“Just the computer. We can leave the table for tomorrow. But Snake, you should probably change first. You know, in case anybody is there.”

“What?” Dave turned back to him in confusion before he realized he was still fully dressed in his gear. “Oh. ‘Kay, I’ll be down in a minute.” He walked down the hallway towards his room, stripping off his vest along the way.

 

In his room he got undressed, throwing everything into a clunky pile on the bed. One in his briefs, Dave rose on his toes and stretched his arms up towards the ceiling, groaning appreciatively as he felt his back pop. He stepped over to where his belt was lying and opened one of the compartments on it, shaking out two USB drives that he had used to gather the intel they needed from the suspicious weapons manufacturer they were currently tailing. He hastily threw on a shirt and shorts, pocketed the USBs, and stepped into flip flops, before jogging back out the door into the muggy August night. Hal had already disappeared down the stairs and back into the parking lot.

Dave stepped into the back of their black Van and saw his partner scooting out from under a small card table, standing up as he wrapped the last of the cables around each other. Dave hoisted the CPU tower up in one arm and the monitor in the other, stepping out of the van before Hal locked it and they set off back towards the stairs. They were at their apartment door before the soliton radar suddenly strobed and duplicated itself, one copy being larger than the other. Dave had to lean against the balcony railing and breathe deeply as he forced down a wave of nausea at the disorienting sight.

“Snake, are you okay?!” He heard Hal drop the cables and felt his cold hands push down at his shoulders, encouraging him to put down what he was carrying. Dave shook his head and remained standing. 

“It’s just a bad comedown. Radar is fucking with my vision. Can you get the door?” Dave pushed himself off the railing and moved behind Hal as he picked the cables back up and opened the door, following him to his room where he set everything down.

“It’s that bad, huh? I’m sorry.” Hal said when he saw how Dave swayed slightly on his feet when he stood back up.

“Yeah, it kinda is. Don’t worry about it too much though. I can handle a few unpleasant side effects.” Dave blinked a few times as the second radar vanished, leaving behind one that was significantly (thankfully) dimmer. The adrenaline was fading away too, and he began to feel a couple of muscular twinges, minor injuries that he had likely sustained from just being tense and alert for the past 2 hours. It was something like 3 in the morning, he and Hal definitely needed to sleep soon.

...Or maybe get a drink?

“Come on. We should probably go do the debriefing while you still have energy.” Hal offered, and they went to the kitchen, where Hal sat at their small table and set up his laptop. Dave was behind him at the fridge where he pulled out an ice tray and retrieved a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose from the counter.

 

“You know, Otacon, you don’t need to feel guilty about all of this. We’re barely getting our feet off the ground here,” Dave said as he put ice cubes in a tall glass. He glanced at Hal when he received no response. “I’m not mad or anything-”

“-No, no, I know you’re not.” Hal cut him off, trying to dismissively wave his hand, but the rest of him was too tense to be convincing. “It’s just, right now you’re kind of the  _ guinea pig _ and it’s making me feel like… I don’t know, gross?”

Dave approached the table and saw Hal jump as he set the glass down. He sighed and gave his arm a gentle tap of apology before taking a seat.

“I’m going to be frank with you, if doing this is making you feel gross, then I don’t know if you’re going to be able to handle the fact that I risk much greater injury than just getting sick from chemicals.” He took a sip of vodka as he watched Hal duck his head and run his hands through wiry hair. “I could have, I don’t know, a tear through my leg or lower back from exploding shrapnel-”

“That’s  _ not _ helping,” He heard Hal mumble from behind his laptop screen. Dave reached over and slowly began to close the lid, waiting for Hal to stop him. He didn’t. They locked eyes for a moment.

“It’s just… it’s a lot, Snake. It’s like I’m directly responsible for your life in more ways than one, and that makes me extremely nervous about messing up.”

“You won’t mess up, because you know what you’re doing.”

Dave ignored the indignant look Hal threw at him.

“I’m serious, Otacon. You’re not just some wide-eyed amateur that I took pity on, You have the skills of a true professional-” Dave tilted his head back as he finished his drink. “-So you need to start having the confidence of one.”

“I guess…”, Hal looked away as he rubbed his arm, then he shook his head and opened his laptop back up. “Anyway, critique time. When did the nanos start running out?”

Dave shoved down his disappointment at Hal’s evasiveness and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and choosing instead to enjoy the warm lull of alcohol as it washed over him. 

 

“The codec began to get crackly…” He tapped his chin as he thought. “...1 hour 30 minutes post-dosage, right as I was finishing downloading the data, which, by the way-” Dave dug into the pocket of his shorts and slid the USBs across the table to Hal, whose eyes lit up at them as he grabbed them and inserted them into his laptop before continuing to type. “There’s all you could ever want to know about the personnel who have worked at that company. I’m sure one of them is bound to have an inconsistency when comparing their records to government docs, got something to hide or some shit.”

“Thank you, Snake. I’ll take a look at that after I’m done.” Hal said as he hunched his head over again, to where only the tips of his black hair poked out above the laptop lid. Dave smiled to himself at how endearing it looked, like Hal was a little kid, though he knew by now that the Engineer was anything but. “How much more potent do you think we’ll have to make them? The nanos, I mean.”

“Hmm, I’d say quite a bit more, even if that makes the comedown worse.” Dave replied. “Make it enough to where it’ll last me anywhere from an hour to an hour-15 past the Estimated Mission Time. I’d rather have a larger safety net in case something goes wrong while I’m in there and I have to stay longer.”

“Agreed.” The keys clacked under Hal’s fingers as he rapidly took notes. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, you should learn how to take a compliment. Write those down too so you can read ‘em to yourself before you sleep.” Dave said, grinning. Hal groaned and hunched his face into his laptop further. 

“Shut up and let me be anxious,” He grumbled.

“Doesn’t do you any good now, does it?”

“That’s easy for you to say while buzzed. Some of us still have work left to do.”

“No, you don’t. You can work later.” Dave stood up and walked over to Hal’s side, shoving his hands in his pockets as he leaned against the table and peered at the laptop screen. “Come have a drink, we need to finish watching The Thing.”

Hal continued to type, already beginning to open a couple of programs to help him decrypt the data on the USB drives. “Gimme 30 minutes…”

Dave slowly lowered his hand in front of the screen, which Hal grimaced at and tried to push away.

“Come on, Hal. Don’t bury yourself in work.”

Hal looked at him for a long moment before Dave realized he had just broken their unspoken “real names carry too much baggage right now” rule, but thankfully he just shrugged, smiling. Dave smiled back, said “There ya go,” and gave him a couple hard pats on the shoulder as he passed him walking back to the kitchen. He heard the laptop give a  _ click _ as it closed.

“Mix mine with something, though.” Hal called out behind him. “Unlike you, I have taste buds.”

“Weakling. We have some lemonade, does that work?”

“Yeah that sounds good. I’m gonna go set up the VCR.”

 

Once they were situated on the couch with the movie going, Dave had already finished his second glass and felt like the entire room was about 10 degrees warmer than it should have been, but he loved it, and missed the feeling of being drunk dearly. It was such a welcome relief from the ice-cold stress that accompanied him with every mission, and that happened whether he had nanos or not.

Of course he freaked out, got stressed and worried about messing up just as much as his partner did. But Dave knew that he couldn’t crack and show it, not just yet. He wasn’t “there” with Hal yet, Hal still idolized him enough for him to notice, and he needed to in turn be somebody for the Engineer to emulate until he realized just how insanely skilled he really was and found the confidence he always seemed to be looking for. Dave could worry about himself and his own feelings later. Thankfully Hal was progressing quickly, and Dave was with no small amount of joy learning that his partner also had a snarky tongue and was finally beginning to reciprocate Dave’s teasing about him being a nerd.

…Not like he wasn’t a bit of a nerd himself. All these 80s sci-fi movies  _ were  _ his. But that was different!

 

“Wanna toast?” Dave found himself asking, without even really thinking about it. He saw Hal turn to him with raised eyebrows before he let a small, embarrassed smile creep onto his face.

“Sure, why not.” Hal grabbed his drink and they raised their glasses, Dave having to concentrate in order to hold his steady. 

“To philanthropy?”

“To philanthropy.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philanthropy watches the news, Dave needs a haircut, and Hal is reminded of something that he would rather forget.

“When are they gonna talk about it?”

“Any minute now. Local news tends to have strange priorities.”

Hal leaned forward and rested his elbows against the back of the couch as Dave, sitting in front of him, grumbled and impatiently began to reach for the mousepad of his laptop on the coffee table. His finger was about to drag the video time forward on the Tallahassee News feed before Hal reached over the couch and tugged at his shirt sleeve.

“Wait, listen! They’re starting now!”

_“Leon County investigators and the OSHA were asked to look into an explosion that happened early Saturday morning at power engineering plant Syn-Tech Systems, the small blast has left none injured or dead, but many vital parts of the plant’s small-parts manufacturing sector have been badly damaged-”_

Dave wound his fingers behind his head and made a show of leaning back in the couch, crossing his ankles on the coffee table before looking at Hal, grinning. “Shit, _We_ did that.” He said, sounding not unlike a proud child showing off a drawing to a parent.

Hal forced himself not to smile at how giddy Dave sounded and shushed him while tapping at the back of his head to get him to sit back up.

The feed now showed the CEO of Syn-Tech talking to the camera, the wind blowing his hair into his tired eyes as he mused about how “unusual” the explosion seemed and that he was glad nobody was hurt, and blah blah blah-

Of course, it was all a front. Both philanthropists were aware that he knew exactly _what_ exploded, and _why_.

“Poor bastard is probably shitting his pants and wondering who exactly found out what he was really developing, huh?” Dave hummed, still sounding a bit too light-hearted for Hal’s taste. There was something definitely frightening about hearing that things _he_ did were being “looked into”. But, It came with the territory, so maybe that would be something that would get better with time? But geez, those police, there were so many…..

Hal drummed his fingers against the back of the couch. “Good thing we aren't in Florida anymore.” He said, glancing quickly out the window to his left. Philanthropy was thankfully now holed up in a two-bed one-bath in a crowded Chicago neighborhood, hundreds of miles away.

Dave nudged Hal’s arm. “Yeah, And you're a damn pro at getting us fast, cheap plane tickets.”

“Heh, Well…. That wasn’t exactly legal ether.” Hal laughed jumpily, shoving down a bit of embarrassment at the compliment.

Dave turned to look at him, a grin ghosting across his face. “Do you think _anything_ we do is legal?”

“Not really. I think I’m getting used to it, actually.” A white lie, but whatever. Hal shook his head to make himself stop thinking about all this before he went any deeper. A success was a success.

“Good, It’s important that you do. It’ll get easier as time goes on. These people will cause a lot more harm over long-term than we ever will.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Wherever you go, explosions tend to follow.” Hal smirked, pushing himself back up to stand straight behind the couch.

“You bet they do.”

 

He let his gaze drop to the back of Dave’s head as the news reports that kept playing on his laptop became background noise. Dave’s hair had grown quickly since they started living together, but on the few occasions when Hal saw him leaning over the sink to trim it, he only ever seemed to care about getting his bangs out of his eyes. The back remained untouched, and it was now almost touching his shoulders. Without thinking, Hal reached out and brushed the strands off Dave’s neck, and Dave made a noise of disapproval before shaking his hair back in place.

“You need a haircut, Snake. Don’t you think it’s too long in the back?”

Dave frowned before reaching back to palm at his hair, tugging at the wavy ends. “Nope, I think It's the perfect length. You just met me when my hair was short. Fucking hated it.”

“‘Perfect length’? When you put it back your bangs stick up everywhere and it looks like a mullet.”

Dave had no answer to that except a vague grumble as he slouched further into the couch, causing his hair to fan out against the cushion. Hal hesitated for a second but then picked up the strands, running them through his fingers. When Dave didn’t object, he began to gently thread them through like a comb, peeling apart tangles as he went. Dave’s hair was soft but there was ...a lot of it, Hal realized, as he worked at what was currently almost curling behind Dave’s right ear.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when Dave’s head tilted back against the couch, pulling the hair out of his hands. He looked at Hal upside-down for a second before Hal saw the corners of his mouth twitch downwards... or upwards.

“You seem to like my hair a lot, Otacon.” Dave said, amusement sparkling in his eyes.

Hal felt his stomach drop slightly as he hurriedly snapped his hands back to himself. “I…? Oh, uh, sorry if,... if that was weird.” He stammered.

Dave pursed his lips and reached up behind him, taking Hal’s wrist and plopping his hand back on his head.

“No, it feels nice.” He said, lifting his head forward again to face the laptop, and Hal could have sworn that his partner’s ears were tinged pink. Hal resumed running his fingers through Dave’s hair as they continued to watch the news. He heard Dave hum a contented sigh and sink a bit into the couch as he relaxed further under his hands, and Hal felt a grin tug at his face and remained quiet to savor the moment for a bit. There was something very endearing about having a famous, deadly soldier be like a purring cat whenever he had his head scratched. Hal held back laughter with a cough before he spoke again.

“You know, you could just go get your hair trimmed and have somebody else wash and comb it. It's the same nice feeling.”

“Don't feel like it.” Dave said, shrugging a shoulder. “They probably wouldn’t cut it how I like. Besides, I’ve been to barbers, and all they do is fawn over how thick your hair is and ask you about your day. It’s annoying.”

Hal hummed in agreement, separating sections of strands in his fingers. He worked automatically, looping them around each other, paying more attention to the news than what he was doing with his hands.

Dave’s neck tensed slightly, and he turned his head, causing Hal to let go. “Otacon, what's with the pulling?” He reached up to feel the back of his head. “Are you... braiding my hair?” He asked.

“Huh?” Hal blinked and looked at the neat brown rope that wound its way out from the back of his partner’s head. “Oh! uh. Sorry, force of habit.” He said, quickly beginning to undo it, face flaming. Leave it up to him to take something too far and make it weird. His thoughts scrambled a bit as he sought an excuse. “My sister used to always want me to-”

Hal immediately froze as he realized what he said, but it was too late - a distinct lump begin to grow in his throat. He bit his lip hard as he quickly tried to undo the rest of the braid, praying that Dave didn’t somehow feel his hands shake.

“To...? Also, I didn't know you had a sister.”

Hal tried to swallow the lump down to no avail. “Ahhh, yeah. Yep.” He cleared his throat thickly. It was getting harder to breathe.

The braid finished coming undone, and he brought his hands back to himself, squeezing at his arms, trying to breathe quietly, trying to not think about _her_.

From his peripherals, he caught Dave tilting his head sideways against the couch to look at him again, his thick brows furrowed as his bangs fell over an eye from the weird angle. Hal watched the other eye and swore that it was pressing in at him, down hard enough to shove its way into the depths of his gut, already cataloguing, already calculating. Dave never missed anything, not a _single fucking thing_.

_Please don’t ask me what’s wrong. Please don’t ask me what’s wrong. Please don’t as-_

“Is that a sensitive subject? We can drop it.”

There was a pregnant pause before Hal took a deep breath through his nose, eternally thanking whatever god that might have existed at that point that things went right for once. He nodded curtly and tried to find his voice around that god awful lump. “Yeah, thanks.” He croaked, swallowing. He needed some water.

 

A few minutes and a glass of water later he had willed himself enough to calm down and walked back to the couch, where Dave scooted aside to make room for him. Hal plopped down on the couch with a tired sigh. Silence fell between them again.

Hal glanced over to see Dave absently thumbing the hair behind his ear. Hal forced himself to relax his shoulders. Things were going to be okay, just…. change the subject.

“Whatever barber you had previously was right. You really do have a lot of hair.” He mused. Dave looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What, and you don’t? You have a shit ton of hair.”

Hal reached up to drag his fingers through his own curly locks, feeling them spring back up into their usual unmanageable shape after. “I don’t, actually! it’s just fluffy.” It was true- his hair was springy but very thin, and there was a slight discomfort in the knowledge that his father had already begun to develop a bald spot by the time he was in his 30s.

“What’s the difference, then?”.

“Fewer strands per squared centimeter.” Hal answered, grinning.

Dave snorted. “Don't tell me you _counted_ , nerd.”

Hal felt his ears heat up. “I- I didn’t!”

Dave laughed and gently nudged his arm with a shoulder.

\----

Later on that night, Hal took a break from posting Syn-Tech's dirty secrets on the internet and went to the kitchen to get some cereal, where he found his partner reading by the warm light of the dying bulb above their table. Dave looked at him as he walked in and shifted in his seat slightly.

“Hey. Sorry about the sister thing.”

Hal paused in looking for scissors to cut open the bag with and tried to hide the sudden clench in his trachea with a smile. _Please, no._

“I-It's not your fault, you didn't know.”

Dave thumbed at his book. “That's not what I mean. I mean I'm sorry that we can’t- …” He sighed, giving an awkward shrug. “...Never mind. I said I'd drop it, so I will.”

Hal felt the muscles in his throat slowly relax. “Thanks Snake, It means a lot to me that you care enough not to pry.” He said quietly, smiling.

Dave gave a half-hearted smile in return, The yellow light casting tired shadows over his face as he looked back down at his book. “It’s no problem, Otacon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter attempted to be fluff but I couldn't get what I wanted out of it without squeezing in some negative tension, agh. And big heaping amounts of that tension is holed up in the next chapter, which should be appearing sooner rather than later. ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Remember what I said a few weeks ago about being sorry about your sister?” Dave rumbled, taking the cigarette out to roll it between his thumb and forefinger. “What I meant by that was that I'm sorry that we can't talk about our families without it dragging up bad shit we’d rather forget. It’s kind of sad. That said," He turned toward Hal and they locked eyes, the light from the ember throwing strange shadows on his partner's face.
> 
> "Otacon, there's something that I think you need to know about me."

\-- _Sep. 3rd, 2005, 7:00pm, Mission start: 6hr00min_ \--

 

Hal tiredly cracked his neck as he shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The late evening sun cast a dark orange shape on the tiled floor, and if he weren’t paying attention to the color, he could almost pretend that it was a sunrise. Their missions always began sometime after midnight, so for a few days before he and Dave had to adjust their sleep schedules so that they were able to stay up all night and get their 8 hours in the afternoon instead, except it wasn’t 8 hours, 4 or 5 was how it usually went for the Engineer, who forewent sleep frequently enough to be used to it. Dave, however, slept for much longer, which was why he was surprised to see his work partner already up when in these times he usually didn’t emerge from his room until around 9pm.

Dave was standing at their coffee pot and watching it brew before he noticed Hal enter the kitchen. He nodded his head in greeting.

“Hey,” Hal said, coming to the sink to wash his cup, which was left out from the night before. “How’d you sleep? You’re never up this early.”

“Only for an hour or two, adjusting my schedule is still hard, I don’t know how you do it so easily.”

Hal finished drying his mug and crossed his arms. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna do a mission on only two hours of sleep.”

Dave grinned as he poured coffee. “That’s why we have this, right? And Nanos.”

Hal got the bread out of the cabinet and opened it, inserting a few slices in the toaster. “I’d much rather you see if you can nap or something, while we still have time.” He spoke through the twist-tie held in his teeth.

“Sure thing, Mom. You worry too much.”

“Whatever. Make me a cup too, will you?”

Dave answered with an “Mhm” as Hal went to the table and opened his laptop to check email. He was still pondering over whether to ask Mei-Ling if she wanted to be a part of Philanthropy or not. They needed some equipment that was difficult to obtain even with Dave’s theft skills, but he didn’t know if she would want to because her job in the CIA kept such a close eye on her. Dave had heavily encouraged him to recruit her anyway though, saying that she was smart enough to find a way to make it work. He figured sending a secure message to ask her to come on a chat server so they could converse more easily wouldn’t hurt. He was just about to start typing when Dave joined him at the table with two cups of coffee, and slid the one with more sugar to Hal.

Hal drafted an email and went to go get his toast, and came back to the table to see Dave reading the paper.

“Anything interesting?” He asked, hitting SEND and hoping for the best. Dave didn’t answer for long enough that he looked up at him, seeing him scowling at something towards the bottom of the page before turning it and remaining completely silent.

“Snake?”

The paper made a crunching noise as Dave suddenly gripped it with white knuckles. Hal could only see the top half of his face, and his wide eyes were staring hard at something.

When his hands began to shake, Hal stood up and reached for the paper, unsure of what was going on. “Are you okay…?” At this, Dave immediately snapped out of whatever reverie he was in, and yanked the paper away from Hal as he hastily turned the page again.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Actually, I’m gonna do like you said and try to go nap. You can have my coffee.” He said quickly, getting up and stalking down the hallway to his room, leaving a thoroughly concerned Hal sitting alone.

“Okay?” Hal called after him, before turning back to his laptop and staring blankly at it. He didn’t miss how Dave took the paper with him when he left, either. What was going on? That was very weird. He nibbled at a piece of lukewarm toast and tried to brush it out of his mind.

 

\-- _10:30pm, Mission start: 3hr00min_ \--

 

Papers spread over the table as Philanthropy went over the schematics and cam images of the facility to be infiltrated one last time. Dave was behaving rather strangely, he was very quiet and had little commentary on the images that Hal was presenting him, paying more attention to what he was writing on printed floorplans instead. He looked very tired, shadows lining his eyelids and he was keeping his neck and shoulders tense as if he was trying not to nod off.

“You okay?”

Dave blinked slowly and shook his bangs out of his eyes. “Yeah, Just kinda tired. The nanos will help with that, though, so don’t worry.”

“That feels reckless, nanos can only do so much. You know we can move this mission to next week, right?”

“Nah, I’ll be fine. We’ve already prepared so much, it would just be effort gone to waste.”

Hal didn’t think so but shrugged in agreement anyway.

 

\-- _12:00am, Mission start: 1hr30min_ -

 

It was one hour until they were going to leave, and Hal was doing some last minute checking to make sure his programs worked properly. The kit to measure and administer a dose of nanos lay open next to him, which he was going to tend to once Dave got dressed. He surfaced from his concentrated state at the sound of Dave’s boots walking briskly down the hallway. He looked towards the kitchen entrance expectantly but was greeted instead by the loud _crack_ of the bathroom door slamming. It shook on its hinges before silence fell again.

So he was still upset about something. Hal paused and then stood up slowly, wondering if he should intervene or not, especially after all the events of today. Dave slipping in and out of negative moods wasn’t exactly uncommon and Hal didn’t blame the soldier at all, especially after all he had been through, but he was usually very honest whenever he wasn’t feeling great, even if it was just in a curt few-sentence explanation as to why he wasn’t going to eat lunch before he shut himself in his room for hours at a time. Hal respected that and gave him the space he needed, but this was unusual. David was a terrible liar, and constantly dodging Hal’s own concern and acting like everything was okay when it clearly wasn’t, especially when they were an hour away from leaving to a job, Hal couldn’t let that slide. He needed to go ask David what was going on and rectify this at least a little bit or the soldier would be in a sub-par mental state during a mission, which was dangerous and against protocol. He swallowed nerves down as he walked towards the bathroom door.

The sink was running and Hal heard some splashing before it was turned off. It was only when he got much closer to the door and gently began to press his ear against it when he could make out ragged breathing that was much too quick and shaky for his comfort. He extended a hand and knocked on the door.

“Are you okay, Snake?” _He’d better not say ‘yes’._

It was some time before he heard an answer.

“I’m f-” Which was interrupted by a violent retch. Hal’s eyes widened as he heard various things come clattering to the floor as Dave coughed and gasped for air, and then the sickeningly wet sound of him vomiting into the toilet. Hal cringed but remained at the door wringing his hands as he waited for him to finish. The toilet flushed, and just as he was about to speak up, Dave made a loud, frustrated growl before there was a harsh _thunk_ of something hitting the floor hard.

“Son of a BITCH!! _”_ He jumped a mile out of his skin as the outburst echoed through the door. Hal felt his heart reach his throat as be immediately reached for the doorknob but was unable to move it. Locked.

“Snake! What the hell is going _on_?! Are you sick?! Open the door!” He grit his teeth as he knocked harder.

“No. No, no no nono, please go away-” There was a shuffling noise and Dave’s breathing turned vocal as he began to hyperventilate.

Hal’s throat tightened as he violently tried the knob again. Somewhere dim in the back of his mind warned him that that was probably not the best thing to do to somebody in the middle of what he assumed was a panic attack, but he didn’t care.

“I am not going away. You need to open this door! Please, you’re clearly having an emergency!”

“No. No, I can’t. Otacon- I c-cant. I can’t do the mission right now, we need- to move it, I can’t do- this...” Hal heard Dave’s hands hit the toilet seat as another retch tore its way out of his throat. “...-I’m in nnnn-no state to work, fuck-” He barely forced the last word out before he had to gasp for air, and Hal heard another frustrated groan before something dully thunked against the floor.

He dropped to his knees and tried to peer under the gap in the door, which was actually rather tall. He could barely make out Dave’s naked back and dark mop of hair. He was half-dressed in his sneaking suit and was lying on his side facing away from the door, curled around the toilet.

“That’s fine! We can afford to move this mission to next week! Don’t worry! I just need you to unlock the door, please, so I can help you-!” With a mind dull with panic Hal craned his neck to try to hear if Dave was still breathing, which he was. It was still too rapid but at least it wasn’t gasping or wheezing anymore.

“Snake,” He pressed his face to the gap as he tried to see in again. “Are you sick because you’re drinking? It’s okay if you are, I’m not mad, but we talked about this-”

The quiet “no” was barely audible. “I‘m not.”

“Then w-”

“Enough.” Dave’s voice was slightly stronger now but still wavering. “Can’t talk right now. Need space for a bit. please.”

Hal sighed and looked at the sliver he could see of his partner for a few more seconds before he stood up. “Okay,” He said, touching the door. “Call for me if you need anything, I’ll be back in 10 minutes.” He swallowed down the massive bundle of anxiety in his stomach as he stayed listening at the door for a bit longer, hearing Dave’s breathing gradually quiet. He turned away and walked to the kitchen as quietly as he could. He needed to start putting things away now that the mission was cancelled.

 

A few minutes later he heard the shower turn on, and a few minutes after that he went to the door again. He called out over the sound of the water.

“Everything alright?”

“Mostly.”

Hal left it at that and went back to the kitchen and finished packing up the supplies for the nanomachines in their respective cases. He carried some documents back to his room, waiting for Dave to get out of the shower.

 

 

Eventually the water stopped, and there was some silence before the bathroom door creaked open. Hal made himself wait as he heard Dave walk towards his room but didn’t hear the door close like he was expecting. The silence stretched on until he couldn’t make himself be patient anymore, and cautiously crept to his door to peek at the adjacent room.

Dave was just exiting, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a towel, which was draped around his shoulders. His hair was a damp mess that hung in his eyes. He looked at Hal, who immediately began to shrink back towards his room, before Dave shook his head and leaned after him into the other doorway.

“No, can you come? I need to talk to you.” He said. Hal rubbed at his arm and followed him down the hall. He noticed that Dave was gripping his pack of cigs and a lighter.

Dave sat on the couch and pressed himself up against the arm as the towel fell to hang around him like a wet cape. Hal sat down next to him while he tugged a cigarette out of the box with his teeth and flicked his lighter. The cold fluorescent lighting of the living room was broken up by a soft orange ember, which brightened to yellow as he took a long drag.

There was silence between them for a few seconds as Hal waited for Dave to speak.

“Remember what I said a few weeks ago about being sorry about your sister?” He rumbled, taking the cigarette out to roll it between his thumb and forefinger. Hal furrowed his eyebrows at the strange choice of topic but said nothing. “What I meant by that was that I'm sorry that we can't talk about our families without it dragging up bad shit we’d rather forget. It’s kind of sad.”

Hal looked away as he made the connection, already having ideas about what this might be. “Right…” He said, glancing at the curl of smoke that wafted towards the ceiling. “But…?” He prompted. Dave looked at him before putting the cigarette back between his teeth and shifting so that his legs were drawn up towards his chest. He hung his head slightly and Hal watched as a water drop from his hair sizzled as it fell onto the lit ember.

“I saw a picture of Big Boss earlier that I wish I didn’t. It was in the paper. They did a column about him today.”

Hal felt his heart squeeze in sympathy as his assumption was confirmed, and suddenly all the events of the past few hours made sense. “Oh, god, I’m sorry…” He sighed, at a loss for words.

“Otacon,”

Dave turned to him and they locked eyes, Hal watching as the light from the ember threw strange shadows on his partner’s face.

“Yes?”

“There's something that I think you need to know about me.”

Hal shifted nervously in his seat. “Okay? You know you can tell me anything.”

“Okay,” Dave leaned over to tap the cig on his ashtray before returning, staying very still as he looked down at his hands.

“I’m…” He took an unsteady breath. “...I’m not a-.... Not a real per-... _ugh_ .” He gave a distressed sigh and dug his hands into his hair as his voice lowered to a mumble that was clearly meant for himself. “Fuck. No. no, yes I am, I am. I _have_ to be-”

Hal shoved back his confusion and gently reached over to touch his partner’s arm to bring him back to the present. “Snake, do you not want to tell me-?”

“Fucking christ... No, I _do,_ but I don't know if i can talk about it without shutting down cause I’ve been repressing it for months-...” Dave took another drag and roughly pushed his hair out of his face. “Okay, how about this - I need you to do something so that you can find out by yourself instead.”

This wasn’t making Hal any less confused. “Okay…?”

“I said that the picture was in today's newspaper, I want for you to go look at it. You might feel like you understand what's going on, but it's more than what you’ll think. You're smart so you'll figure it out.”

“I’m not exactly following. What do you mean “what's going on”?” Hal said cautiously. Dave tensed up and puffed at his cig for a moment, he was almost never vague like this and Hal could tell he was frustrated at not being able to say something plainly.

“If you look at it,” Dave elaborated. ”You'll have an idea of why I'm upset, but it goes deeper than that. It’s not pretty, in fact it’s _beyond_ fucked up. It won't take you long to guess.” He dug the cig into the ashtray to put it out. “Do you understand what I’m asking?”

Hal failed to curb his anxiety. “This is scaring me. What did you do?”

“ _Do you understand_?” Dave said more forcefully as he leaned in towards Hal, who almost shrank back but made himself not to, eventually finding the resolve to stand up as a vague fear grew in his chest.

“Yes, I do. I'm going. Where's the newspaper?”

“My room.”

“Okay.”

_A picture of BIg Boss…_

 

\-- _12:40AM, Mission cancelled until further notice, tentative reschedule to Sep.10_ \--

 

Hal sat at his desk in his room with the paper spread open before him.

The article had mentioned Big Boss because that day was the anniversary of Operation Snake Eater, an event that saved the US from nuclear disaster, and rocketed him to hero status and kept him there for years before his more controversial actions came to light among the public in the late nineties, which just served to bolster his fame with infamy and tragedy. This article was just a general, short biography about him and his actions, and nuclear war.

The article began near the bottom of the page and continued onto the next one. There was a picture that was on the first page.

The picture was labeled “ _Big Boss with an officer from an early independent mercenary army, 1974_.”

Hal stared at it. He had only ever seen pictures of the cold war icon when he had been much older. Despite being famous, there weren’t very many pictures of him to go around, and it was the first time he had seen this one. It showed Big Boss standing against the wall of a rust-stained building that was on unpaved dirt, with his arm slung around a handsome blonde man with aviators (Miller?). The blonde man was grinning widely and holding up his fingers in a peace sign, while Big Boss sported a more conservative half-smile. Hal sat back and looked at it some more as he thought.

They did indeed look _very_ alike. Big Boss had the same scruffy, long hair that David had, but what really struck Hal was that it was tied back with a bandana, and the way that the long strands fanned out from the back of his neck was all too familiar, though the bandana was dark green instead of navy. He supposed that Big Boss had carried that into Foxhound’s standard dress codes, which made sense. Bandanas were usually worn by stealth agents because they helped keep one’s hair and sweat out of their eyes as well as covering up the forehead to decrease the amount of visible skin and to break up the shape of the face.

There were definitely a few differences. Big Boss had a full beard and more facial wrinkles ( _How old was he at this point?),_ and was more stocky and broad-shouldered than Dave’s lean frame. His face was also a little bit rounder. Hal wasn’t sure how tall he was, though Mr. Miller had a couple of inches of height on him. Despite that, the resemblance was there. Dave even smiled in the same lazy way, and they had the same straight brow and light eyes.

Was Dave upset because he didn't previously realize how much he looked like his father? He hadn’t realized that either until right now, and he felt like there was a logical conclusion in that surprise. He knew how it felt to physically look a lot like an abusive (more than that) parent, having to see their features on your own body like that was stressful and guilt-inducing.

He turned to the next page of the article to glance at the rest of the text when he saw the second picture, and stopped breathing as a chill ran up his arms.

 _Oh_.

There was a photo of a much younger, clean-shaven Big Boss, dated 1963. the basic kind of portrait taken for military record purposes. Hal felt his blood gradually turn colder the longer he looked at it. It was like all the differences were now erased, and he was looking at a photo of David. Exactly of him, just in sepia tone. He remembered how Dave had turned the page before beginning to visibly freak out, so this was probably the picture he was talking about.

Parents and children tended to look alike, especially when comparing them at similar ages, but this was _eerie_.

Hal thought back to Dave’s words during their earlier conversation - “ _At first you'll have an idea of why I'm upset, but it goes deeper than that.”_

He felt his leg begin to bounce as he stared at the newspaper. Partially out of not wanting to have to look at that picture anymore, he went back to skim through the article from the beginning, trying to find anything that seemed strange, though most of information that was on there he already knew.

 

He was about a quarter of the way through the second page when he caught something.

_“Big Boss was rendered sterile in a nuclear weapons accident prior to OSE and thus never had any children.”_

He hadn’t known anything about _that_. At first glance this statement seemed like a fabrication for the sake of drama. It was an easy lie to make, Dave had no official birth certificate so he was basically one of those illegitimate children of public figures that tended to go unnoticed. Besides that, if Big Boss were sterile how was it possible for David to be his child? The simple fact that they looked so strikingly similar was proof enough that there could be no surrogacy involved.

_“There’s something I want for you to know about me.”_

Unless Dave was… not actually his son? Could Big Boss have an identical twin…?

_No, Hal, stay rooted in facts for now. Speculate only based on the information you already have access to._

He thought for a couple of seconds and then went to the newspaper’s website and took a screenshot of that same image, then brought up a copy of David’s personnel file that he had swiped from the Pentagon and kept, just in case. There was a basic front-shot of David’s face taken just before Shadow Moses, very similar in manner to Big Boss’ photo.

Looking at them side by side only made his stomach twist even more. It felt very unnatural, as if the images were doctored in some way, but why would they be? It wouldn't make sense.

_“I’m not a real per-”_

Dave was not a real...what?

 _“ ‘I’m not a real... person?’ ”_ , Hal mouthed to himself as his eyes moved back and forth between the two images.

_“It’s beyond fucked up. It won’t take you long to guess.”_

Hal felt his mind stretch further and further out of the realm of believability to find a possible connection between all these pieces, until there was an idea, a horrible idea that he tried to discard as bogus out of fear but it refused to leave. With shaking hands he brought the images into an editing program, turned up the transparency on Big Boss’ photo, and dragged it over David’s. He slowly decreased the image size and rotated one a bit, dreading what he would find.

The pictures soon lined up and Hal gaped at the screen, not believing what he was looking at.

The two faces fit over each other exactly. There was not a single feature out of place. He double, triple checked to make sure he hadn’t accidentally copied the same image twice.

_“I’m not a real person.”_

 

Hal gasped as he felt a wave of nausea wash over him and he slammed the power button on his computer monitor. The offending images disappeared, leaving him in semi-darkness with only the sound of his hammering heart to keep him company. He pressed his hand over his mouth and stared at the floor.

His foot brushed the newspaper that had fallen from his scramble, and he glanced at it.

_“Big Boss was rendered sterile in a nuclear accident and thus never had any children.”_

If that was true, then the only way for Big Boss to have any genetic children... was through somatic cloning.

_“I’m not a real person.”_

Hal gave a slow, long sigh as he took off his glasses and pressed his palms against his eyes.

It was bogus. It was almost science fiction, but then again, so was a functional nuclear mech. He knew firsthand that science goes much farther than the common public is led to believe. It made just enough sense to connect everything. Was this what Dave had wanted for him to find out? Was this what threw him into a panic attack a few hours ago? Seeing that picture of a younger Big Boss...

If his hunch was right, this wasn’t just anxiety and depression from having to look in the mirror and see your father’s face every day and having to clean up after the fallout of his actions, Hal knew very well how that felt, he and Dave had silently bonded over it long ago. This was something _else_. Dave was battling with an existential crisis on a level that Hal could not even begin to comprehend.

What was he going to do?

Still in a sort of numb shock, Hal pressed at his face again and stood up, grabbing his glasses from the table and putting them on. He was at a complete loss for how to approach Dave with this, but he had to. He knew that Dave probably didn’t want to talk about it any further but… He felt like he needed to be there to show him that he understood.

 

Their apartment was deathly silent.

Hal crept into the hallway and after not seeing Dave on the couch, found him instead sitting at the table, towel draped over his shoulders, head down on his arms. He had a 3/4s empty bottle of Jack (that Hal knew was almost full this morning) resting solemnly near his elbow.

Hal stood there and dug his nails into his palms for a few seconds before deciding to alert Dave of his presence by getting a glass of water. However, when he walked to the table and set the glass down, Dave hadn’t moved. Hal reached out and touched his arm lightly, and Dave immediately snapped his head up, eyes glazed over. He swayed noticeably, staring not at Hal but at some point by his shoulder.

“Snake?”

Dave’s pale eyes rolled to meet his, and he slowly inclined his head towards the chair next to him, which Hal took. Silence blanketed them for a few moments before Dave lifted the bottle of Jack to his lips, but he quickly put it back down and instead gave a harsh, gagging cough towards the floor. Hal felt his heart clench at the sound and pushed the glass of water at him and Dave immediately took it, taking a long sip before moving it to rest beside the bottle. He looked at the wall for a few more moments before dropping his head back down to rest on one arm, the other hanging loosely at his side.

“Hal,” He said weakly, looking at him through cracked eyelids.

“Dave,” Hal adjusted, The name being commonplace in his mind but unfamiliar on his tongue. He briefly moved his hand toward Dave’s own but thought the better of it, not really knowing what was appropriate. He got his answer when he felt a warm hand clap itself onto his shoulder and grip tightly. Hal hesitantly brought his opposite hand over to rest on top of his partner’s. Dave lifted his fingers slightly, and they threaded together. Hal struggled to keep his from shaking.

“Listen to me.” Dave was trying not to slur his words and mostly failing. “I don’t care if you have to lie, ‘cause I just wanna hear you say “yes”-”

There was a pause as they looked at each other.

“Do you still think I'm human?”

Hal felt his whole world shrink and blur as he began to cry.

“Of _course_ I do, I-, I just-” He had to stop for a couple of seconds as he buried his face in his hands, glasses digging into the bridge of his nose. This was all just too much to take in. Through his sobs Hal was dimly aware of Dave’s hand dropping from his shoulder and sliding along his back, travelling slowly up and down, a constant moving warmth.

“And I’m not lying either-!, I’m not, really, I’m not.” Hal said, trying to regain control of himself. “Dave... I dont want for you to comfort _me_ about this. You’re the one who has all this…. All this _stuff_ to deal with.”

Dave looked up at him from where his head lay on his arm, and Hal was suddenly aware of just how deep the lines underneath his eyes were.

“I don’t need comforting. I just need for you to understand.” He rasped, moving his hand to Hal’s shoulder again to give it a squeeze. “I need for you to not leave,” His eyes suddenly glazed over, and he used Hal as leverage to push himself away to gag at the floor again. He rested his forehead against the table when he was done. “Please...” His voice shook the slightest bit as he squeezed his eyes shut, and his hand slid off Hal’s shoulder as he began to curl in on himself. “Even if you're disgusted with me, at least stay. I can't be alone anymore.”

“I’m not going to leave.” Hal said earnestly, leaning forward onto the table so that they were at eye-level. “I was shocked to learn this and I’m very upset only because I can’t even imagine what that must feel like, or what kind of thoughts that digs up. But you need to know that my opinion of you has not changed at all. You are absolutely still a person, still a human being, just like me. I finally feel like I’m doing something right here, so I don’t _want_ to leave.”

Dave was giving him a look that was somewhere between surprise and that calculating stare Hal knew he usually did whenever he didn’t believe something. He was quiet as he sighed and plopped his head back onto his arms.

“Thanks.” He mumbled.

“Do you want to talk about any of this at all?”

“No, I don't want to think about it. Just wanted you to know.” Dave’s words were getting increasingly blurred together.

“Okay.” Hal paused and listened to his partner’s even breathing. “If you're gonna sleep, you should probably lie down on the couch.”

Dave picked his head up and blinked tiredly. “Fuck. Okay.” He turned in his chair and extended an arm towards Hal, who was now standing up. “Help me.”

Hal pursed his lips and rolled up his sleeves. Normally he would be afraid of having to support 175 lbs of drunk stealth operative, but (unfortunately) he had done this often enough now to have confidence. He stooped to loop Dave’s arm around his shoulders and stood up after a brief countdown, heaving him into a standing position. He began to walk immediately, clinging tightly to Dave’s side to keep him from swaying or sidestepping.

“You need to drink less”, He mumbled as Dave finally sat on the sofa and dazedly propped his head up on a hand. “I can’t be doing this all the time.”

Hal didn’t get the sarcastic jab back that he was expecting. “I’m trying, okay? It’s hard.” Dave sounded far too wounded and Hal instantly backpedaled, knowing that was now sensitive territory.

“It’s alright. I understand that you have a lot of stuff you have to deal with. But you don’t have to deal with it alone, okay? Just be careful.” Dave hummed in agreement and laid down, and Hal brought over the freshly-lined kitchen trashcan to place on the floor beside him. He was already asleep when Hal set the glass of water on the coffee table.

 

Hal stood and stared at his friend, his work partner, the person who saved his life, the person who so easily gave him a _purpose_. The person whose confidence and sense of humor and love of 80s movies and music rubbed off on him more by the day, and the person who just begged for him to stay by his side because he was afraid that Hal would be disgusted that he was a clone.

He had privately thought of Dave as being almost inhuman in his abilities, and now he very much did not want to place that label anymore.

What made somebody a real human?

Dave was certainly not inhuman. He was highly skilled, yes, But he was broken like a human, and flawed like a human. Hal had learned many things from living with him.

Dave was moody and impatient and sometimes painfully direct in nature. He had a taste for violence that he was bad at hiding, he often “forgot” to knock guards out in favor of snapping their necks and was rougher than he needed to be with the ones he left alive. He drank far too much and didn't know how to take care of himself when drunk. He smoked like a chimney when missions drew near. He hated dense crowds and habitually avoided talking to strangers whenever they were out. He, much to Hal’s embarrassment, didn't try to be quiet when masturbating (he guessed it was because Dave was used to living alone and also probably just _didn't care_ , good thing headphones existed). He also shed hair, a lot. Hal found those damn brown strands fucking _everywhere_ , especially in the shower drain, but that’s besides the point.

But now, tonight? More than anything, Hal knew that Dave was afraid of being alone. He needed, no, _required_ other people to function properly and to not spiral into a void, because he did not have the capabilities to handle any of his demons by himself. They were simply too large, too intense for even normal people to handle.

He was afraid of being alone...

 

If Hal asked himself what made somebody human, he thinks that would be it. Humans needed other people to survive. Humans sought out each other and formed relationships and delighted in the comforts that those relationships brought. Humans helped each other to grow. It was so much easier than having to grow on your own.

Dave was irrevocably, absolutely _human_ to Hal in every single way, and nothing about him being a clone would ever change that.

Hal felt a rush of affection as he leaned over and pushed his sleeping friend's hair off his brow. In the back of his mind he wondered if their partnership would truly be a long term. He hoped so, because he knew now more than ever that Dave needed him as much as he needed Dave. He knew from many stories on the internet that people often felt disappointed whenever their idols fell or showed too many flaws they dislike, but this was different. Dave was no longer his idol, and he shouldn't be. They were partners, equal in their contribution to Philanthropy and mutually dependent on each other to keep going. This wasn't some responsibility that he felt obligated to take on, it was something he knew he had to do because it was the right thing, the human thing, to love people and care for them.

Hal smiled and shook his head to himself in embarrassment as he realized how long he had been standing there, and made his way to his room to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOO BOY OK, this chapter was a doozy, and I absolutely did NOT expect it to be as long as it is. it's 6030 words, jesus fucking christ.  
> It was also an angst heap, which is really fun to write but also mentally taxing, having to navigate the actions and conversation to keep it realistic. 
> 
> Next two chapters are going to be shorter fluff to cleanse the palate! <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like long showers, long car drives happen to be the ideal place for letting your thoughts get away from you. Dave privately tries to deal with something he can no longer ignore.

\--May 23rd, 2006--

  
One of the things Dave liked the most about traveling was that he could set foot in nature again.

  
Or rather, set car.

  
Regardless, it had been years since he’d been to Texas, and the scenery really was beautiful. It was beautifully empty, with sparse patches of grass somehow drawing moisture from endless stretches of dry, cracked land that probably hadn’t seen rain in weeks. The emptiness and harshness reminded him of Alaska, except this was Alaska’s blonde stepsister. Instead of blue and black, the land was bathed in the intense orange of the setting sun. a hot haze had settled just above the road in front of him and blurred its way across the landscape beyond, the ground still grasping onto old heat from a few hours ago as if it were trying to prove a point. He could see the occasional field far off from the road, with their owner’s tiny houses barely peeking their way up from the horizon.

  
Maybe in an alternate universe, he would have retired to a farm in the panhandle instead.

  
Too bad they weren’t staying here, they were really only hauling ass over to the Dallas airport so that they could catch a flight to California to finally physically meet up with Mei-Ling, Philanthropy’s official newest member. Unlike them she was part-time, but she was a dearly needed asset nonetheless. It would also be nice to relax for once, go be in a new place with new fake IDs, go hang out at a bar and grill and talk about garbage politics and television and laugh over drinks. The idea of doing that with somebody who wasn't Hal at this point felt completely alien. Living a high-security life was like introversion on steroids, so any chance to get the all-clear to relax publicly around a third person like Mei-Ling was one he was grateful for. He liked her a lot. He liked watching her and Hal chatter excitedly to each other about technology even more.

  
The air conditioner ticked gently in the ancient rental he was driving, even through the filter he could catch a hint of the dustiness of the outside air. Dave wished he could roll down the window and smell it more, except at the speed he was going, all it would do is introduce a deafening roar and way too much wind. Instead he had an old tape of Queensryche's _Empire_ currently in the car’s deck (one of the good things about ancient cars). It was turned down low enough to where he could only really hear the higher tones of the drum set and Geoff Tate’s vocals over the engine, mostly out of respect for the snoozing hacker nestled in the passenger seat beside him.

  
Hal was currently pressed up against the inside of the door, shoes discarded on the floor and legs pretzeled underneath him in an attempt to be as comfortable as possible. Dave spared a glance his way and smirked with amusement at his partner’s open mouth and askew glasses; It hardly looked uncomfortable with how deep of a sleep he seemed to be in.

  
Dave’s gaze dropped to Hal’s shirt, the folded fabric that he knew depicted the titular character from _Serial Experiments Lain_ , an anime they both recently watched (in Hal’s case, re-watched) in their sparse downtime. Dave had long since given up acting reluctant to watch Hal’s silly Japanese cartoons because by this point he found that whatever Hal recommended to him, he actually enjoyed a _lot_. The philosophical themes and dark, strange atmosphere of _Lain_ had him completely hooked loathe as he was to actually admit it, much like _Evangelion_ had a few months prior. By this point, Hal knew exactly what he liked and could rope him into marathoning a series with him easily, provided he had enough alcohol to enjoy it with of course.

  
Likewise, He had introduced Hal to the wonders of 70s/80s horror and sci-fi, and despite that Hal at first dismissed it as trashy cheese (which made no sense considering he liked 80s anime just fine, that hypocrite), He found himself glued to it too and Dave secretly was very triumphant about that. It was exciting sharing your interests with somebody else and having them be enthusiastic, and their differing views on all these characters, themes, and plot points gave them a lot to talk and fake-argue about.

  
It was nice, having a close friend. Dave couldn’t remember the last time he had somebody whom he could confidently call that. He could count the number of people who he trusted enough to tell his real name on one hand, which was something that he knew even intense-introvert Hal couldn’t do.

  
Being that historically antisocial did present a glaring problem, though. It meant that he didn’t have enough experience with handling feelings about other people. Dave liked compartmentalizing and rationalizing his emotions away into neat, easily-sealable boxes with clear explanations and labels. It was a coping mechanism that he used frequently to carry him through times when his mental state began to slip, as well as to carry him through missions where he did things that would make the average civilian squirm.

  
But none of that seemed to be able to apply to how he currently felt towards Hal Emmerich. That feeling was like a giant tangle of unknown _positivity_ that frequently took up too large of a space in his heart for comfort. It was too big, too nebulous, and too distracting to be able to chop up and file away. The last time he felt this way about somebody was with Meryl, and that fact made him a little nervous.

  
Dave huffed an irritated sigh as he propped his cheek up on a palm and slowed down enough to allow a giant 18-wheeler to merge in front. For weeks now, the way he felt about Hal Emmerich was steadily growing more and more complicated by the day, It especially became too obvious to ignore when he found that the skinny engineer had somehow wormed his way into a sex dream or two.

  
Or three.

  
Okay, to be fair he was probably projecting because he missed Meryl, because going from having a lot of great sex with a fiery redhead for 2 months to absolutely nothing but his right hand for nearly a year was very difficult. Hal occasionally made fun of him for having what he saw to be an insatiable libido but in all honesty sex was a lot like cigarettes to him; It was comforting and familiar, kept his mind off of things, and was an excellent stress reliever. Even during his isolated time in Twin Lakes, At least once a month he would make it a point to trek all the way over to Anchorage to find someone to (safely) sleep with. But now that he and Hal were doing illegal things on the regular that sort of behavior was way too risky, so he couldn't. Maybe this giant dry spell was the cause behind all of… _this_.

  
So he was a little pent up and horny because he missed his Ex, big fat deal.

  
...No, if he was being honest with himself that wasn't entirely it. The Big Tangle Of Feelings he had about Hal (and Meryl) didn't just revolve around sex, because that would have been too easy, too simple to file away and never think of again. He had deeply loved Meryl. He had wanted to protect her and he had loved it whenever she smiled or laughed, and he had felt so nice when they stayed up for hours talking to each other about random shit. As short as their relationship was, he had loved her more than anybody in his entire life up to that point. When she left he realized that without that company he was borderline dysfunctional, that he absolutely _needed_ to find somebody else.

  
And thus, the Monkey's Paw put down a finger.*

  
He didn't _want_ to feel that way about Hal. It was a horrible, awful idea that did nothing but scare him.

  
It had nothing to do with the fact that Hal was a man, of course. Though he definitely preferred women, He had recognized an infrequent but present attraction towards men since he was a teenager, so there were no hangups there. It bothered him because it felt inappropriate, like Hal was too _important_ to be thought of that way, too big of an asset to his lifestyle and their cause and to his personal happiness to have it all hang on the precipice of such unstable feelings. Hal might not feel the same way, or might not even be into guys, or he was, but then they would grow too attached to each other and the inevitable breakup would end Philanthropy as well, causing Metal Gears to flourish and start World War III. Or maybe one of them would die and cause the other to fall (again) into a horrible depression, which would _also_ cause Metal Gears to flourish and start World War III...

  
...Was nuclear disaster really worth a couple of selfish feelings? A lot hung on his and Hal’s shoulders, didn’t it?

  
Dave found himself squinting too much to try to keep the sun out of his eyes as it sank lower in the sky, and rummaged around in the door pocket to get his sunglasses. The orange haze eventually roused Hal too, who squeezed his eyes shut and made a noise as he tried to curl tighter into himself, then gave up and blinked sleepily out at the horizon before turning to Dave.

  
“Hi,” he mumbled.

  
“Finally out of hibernation?” Dave teased, spotting an exit and flicking the blinker on to take it into a small truckstop town.

  
“Mhmm,” Was the half-awake answer he got. And Dave really wished he didn’t spare a glance towards his partner just then, because then he noticed how long and dark his eyelashes were, and how there were cute freckles that dotted his cheeks that he never really gave thought to before, and how the way he yawned and rested his chin on his knees was so damn endearing, and- _Stop. Stop stop stop._

  
Dave felt panicky adrenaline trickle into his system as he suddenly wished he could erase the entire last 30 minutes of his thought process, because now everything good was ruined, his perception of his best friend was dirtied, this whole thing needed to be locked away and never thought of again, right now. He was already struggling to keep the stress out of his body language now that Hal was awake, how the fuck was he going to last an indefinite amount of time more?

  
He was Solid god damned Snake, and yet here he was having a miniature panic attack because he had a crush on his tech support. Let it be known that infiltrations expert and black-ops hero Solid Snake allowed World War III to occur because his dick was bigger than his brain.

  
No, he was better than this. He had to be. He couldn't afford the luxury of risking his working relationships on things like romantic love. That was the short and long of it, he was just going to have to deal.

  
But _fuck_ , how he _wished_ he could.

  
The car's tires crunched on unpaved gravel as he rolled to a stop at a seedy gas station. He tossed the keys over the hood to Hal and shoved his hands in his pockets as he stalked over to the convenience store. He really needed more smokes. Maybe he should pick up some candy or something for Hal too, since it was his turn to drive.

  
A full tank, some Lucky Strikes and a bag of gummy worms later, Dave was leaning out the window, head pillowed on his arms as the warm evening air caressed his face. A cig hung from his mouth and he pressed his lips togeher to take a hands-free drag, blowing out the smoke through his nose and watching as it slanted sideways from inertia and disappeared from view. Unbeknownst to Hal he got unfiltered this time; a more intense kick was needed after the Bullshit his brain just threw at him. The nicotine was working its magic nicely- he could already feel his shoulders beginning to relax as his thoughts drifted.

  
Hal had turned up the music slightly and Dave could hear his fingers tapping against the steering wheel, accompanying the snare drum to _One and Only_.

  
  
_I was one step closer to the danger zone_  
_I knew she'd steal my heart away_  
_I couldn't keep living without her love, without her love_

  
  
"Why do all classic rock vocalists sound like Robert Plant?" Hal asked before clearing his throat to get the raspiness of sleep away.

  
Dave snorted. "Geoff Tate sounds nothing like Robert Plant, Otacon."

  
"The style is similar at least. Sorry for not picking up the subtleties, meganerd. I don't listen to this stuff." There was a smile in Hal's voice before a ceramic crunch indicated him getting another gummy worm out of its bag.

  
"So I, the brawn of this operation, the one who isn't wearing an anime t-shirt, am the best candidate for meganerd, is that right?"

  
"Quit acting like such a jock, Snake. You're brawn with a liberal coating of meganerd."

  
"It's too bad you're not as balanced," Dave hummed, getting the fake-irritated huff he was waiting for. One of the things he liked about Hal was that he was okay with being an easy target.

  
"Shut up."

  
"Only teasing."

  
"I know."

  
Hal got back on the highway and began to speed up, and Dave put out his cigarette butt with a licked finger before flicking it out of the car, where he imagined it bouncing against the oil-stained road. He rolled up the window and the outside noise was sealed away. The silence was warm and comfortable, the feeling magnified by the lingering effects of his favorite drug. Dave put his feet up on the dashboard and let his gaze drift towards the ceiling.

  
  
_Now I'm lost in a lover's daze and I'm not walking out_  
_Gonna give my heart away and hope that she will always stay_  
_Close the door, toss the key_  
_Say you will always be my one and only_

  
  
Maybe everything would be okay. This didn't need to be some sort of catastrophe, that was just his anxiety getting away from him like it usually did.

  
Maybe he could just enjoy how close their friendship was and appreciate how much they already loved and trusted each other instead. He could probably sneak in some ambiguous physical contact here and there, just so that he didn't feel so starved of touch, but for now he could definitely wait. It was better to keep his mouth shut, be cautious, and play it by ear, see how things went, et cetera.

  
Maybe.

  
Dave felt his eyes slip shut. He heard Hal turn down the stereo a bit, but he didn't really feel like sleeping.

  
  
_Treat me to your sense of taste and style_  
_And together we can walk the miles_  
_Close the door, toss the key_  
_Say you will always be my one and only._

  
  
Screw these lyrics. Geoff Tate wasn't exactly known for his writing prowess, anyway.

  
He had handled saving the world a few times, so much unlike Geoff Tate, he could probably get a grip on this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Monkey's Paw line is a reference to a piece of classic literature - The Monkey's Paw is a talisman that grants any 3 wishes you make, but it corrupts the wish into something you don't want. It puts down a finger with each granted wish.
> 
> The next chapter is a bit saucy so it'll push a T rating ;) stay tuned.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “See, this is why you need to take breaks. You’ve been sitting cross-legged all hunched over like this for hours, what did you think was going to happen?” Dave chided.  
> Hal gingerly rubbed at his shoulder. “I swear to god, Snake, you spend half of this organization’s time hiding bodies and the other half trying to mom me about my work habits.”  
> "Cause they suck, obviously.” Dave brushed Hal’s hand away and replaced it with his own, thumb searching. “Where does it hurt?”

"Does that look right?"

Hal looked back at Mei-Ling’s webcam image as she leaned forward and squinted at her screen. "Umm... Yes. So now that the codec knows when its audio feed is lagging, we need to tell it how to handle those errors."

“I'd prefer if there were no errors at all." Hal clicked his tongue and pressed enter a few times before beginning to type a ‘While’ loop.

“You were the one who said you wanted better audio quality. That's the tradeoff because the decoder has to work harder. But It shouldn't be noticeable unless your connection is bad.” Mei-Ling smiled. “And knowing you, I doubt it ever will be.”

Hal smiled back and reached in front of him to take a sip of his coffee. He was curled up on the couch with his laptop, one a few computing positions he had adopted within the past 7 or so hours that he had been working to revamp and modernize the Codec after procrastinating on it for months. He could do most of the work just fine by himself, but when it came to things like audio and signal processing, he was a bit lost. Thankfully, communications was one of Mei-Ling’s areas of expertise. Though he knew she could probably do it herself, he was happy that she was patiently taking the time to walk him through his coding and explain concepts to him, even if that had to be done over a (secure! Always secure) video call.

It was hard and tedious work. Most of the Codec’s programming was not his own to begin with and even worse, it appeared to be written by multiple people who all had different levels of proficiency, so trying to pick at it to see what he could improve was at times like trying to decipher messy, abbreviated class notes. But thankfully the way it handled audio had to be overhauled entirely and re-written from scratch. Radio was out, Internet was in.

“I'm so glad we're switching over to Internet. Burst transmission was stressful. Having to stay like a mile away from an infiltration site just so that I could hear him freaked me out.” Hal set his coffee down and rubbed at his tired eyes. Unfortunately, there was a certain mission coming up that he absolutely _had_ to physically accompany Snake for, and even with stealth camo and what was essentially an excellent bodyguard, he was _terrified_ that he would get shot. Or worse, separated-

_-No, worry about that later._

“That's why VOIP is better than short-range radio burst,” Mei said. “As well as sounding better, It also keeps you a lot safer. You will easily be able to conduct missions from here, but you will just have to have much tighter data security so nobody eavesdrops.”

"Don't worry about that, I've got us plenty covered on data security.” That’s what he had spent the majority of the past few hours beefing up. Hal paused and looked at his screen in thought. “So, error handling… From what I know about internet voice calls, if frames get dropped It makes it sound all stretchy and robotic. But that worsens lag and obviously our jobs are time-sensitive, so we don't want that.”

“Exactly. Most commercial VOIPs buffer by repeating previous data to cover up drops. Instead, we want it to guess the value of dropped bits and insert those in the holes, like a telephone does. That way you guys won't get any time delay.” He saw Mei take a sip from a big pink mug with a cat on it. Probably tea. “So, start by giving it a range of values to guess, based on the data surrounding a drop.” She continued.

“Gotcha.”

Mei frowned at her screen. “Ugh, that simple function took 15 lines of math? C is so wordy.”

“I know, but that's what the Codec was written in so we’re stuck with it. At least it runs fast.”

“Let's make it run even faster and rewrite the whole Codec in Machine Language*.” Mei said, grinning. Hal laughed at her joke.

"That would be torture, can you imagine?" He shook his head to himself before continuing to type.

“Hey, Otacon…?”

Hal was a bit absorbed in double-checking his previous math to make sure he had everything right. “Hmm?”

“There’s someone beh-”

A pair of hands slammed down on his shoulders.

“EYAH!” Hal’s heart leapt out of his chest as he startled violently.

He had nearly kneed his laptop to the ground and out of pure reflex reached out to save it. The mystery person behind him began snickering, and Hal whipped around to glare at first a red shirt, then moved his eyes up to a familiar stubbly face split wide with an evil grin.

“I'm sorry, did you not hear me come in?” Dave said, not even trying to conceal smugness.

“Jesus fucking christ, Snake…” Hal groaned. He passed hand over his face as his heart continued to thud in his chest. He was an easy startle, and Dave knew it, and recently he had been _relishing_ in it. There wasn’t really anything he could do about it at this point.

Mei had her hand over her mouth, trying hard to suppress giggles. "Hi, Snake!" She said, giving him a wave.

Hal pouted at Mei’s giggling. “It's not funny. He moves so silently that I can’t even relax in my own apartment.” He felt the hands on his shoulders give an affectionate squeeze before lifting away.

”It's a _little_ funny,” Dave said before stepping back to do a one-handed vault over the couch, landing heavily enough to make Hal grip his laptop again as they bounced on the cushions. He put Mei’s call on full-screen so his partner could see her better.

“Hello, Mei-Ling. You're looking beautiful as always.” Dave purred, and Mei blushed and smiled as she glanced down to shuffle some papers off-screen.

Hal rolled his eyes. “Okay, Snake, do you have any _business_ -related inquiries? We’re kind of busy.”

“Actually, yes.” He replied. “I came to ask if you had any news for me about the deliveries. Did they get out okay? When’s the ETA?.”

Mei perked up. “Yes! I received word from our guy yesterday. He almost ran into a snag with a nosy search officer but nothing happened. Your new tranq shells and suit should be arriving Thursday, unscratched.”

Dave reached over and took a sip of Hal’s coffee. “Good to hear,” He said, wrinkling his nose at how much sugar it had. Hal shot him a smug look and plucked it out of his hands.

“Anyway, it's great to have you around, Mei. We don’t know what we would do without you.” Hal nodded in agreement, and Mei beamed. “It’s also nice for Otacon to have a nerdier set of ears to bounce his phonebook of ideas off of. You actually know what he’s talking about half the time.” Dave grinned as Hal elbowed him in mock irritation.

“Should we get back to work then?” Hal asked, and Mei nodded. He turned to his partner, who made no move to leave the couch.

“I don’t think so,” Dave said. “You’ve been at this for eight hours already. And I haven’t seen you have a single meal besides coffee.” He added, noticing Hal beginning to protest.

Mei raised her eyebrows. “Eight hours? Otacon, that’s a lot. Even I take more frequent breaks than that.”

Had it really already been eight hours? Hal checked his watch and saw that it was 10PM. Oh. It had. Why wasn’t he hungry?

“Yeah, uh, I guess it has been.” He said sheepishly, taking off his glasses to clean them on his shirt. “2ish tomorrow?” He asked to Mei, who nodded.

“2ish tomorrow. Goodnight guys, get some sleep!”

“I’ll make sure he does.” Dave said. Hal made a “psh” noise.

“Bye Mei.”

“Bye!”

 

After checking to see that everything was saved, Hal closed his laptop stood up to stretch. He lifted his arms over his head but had to stop as intense pain suddenly shot down his right shoulder. He swore under his breath as he grabbed at it, feeling the muscle as it hardened and locked up. He felt Dave place a concerned hand on his arm and he sat back down on the couch, defeated. Typical - he wasn’t known for having the best working posture and was no stranger to back pain.

“See, this is why you need to take breaks. You’ve been sitting cross-legged all hunched over like this for hours, what did you think was going to happen?” Dave chided.

Hal gingerly rubbed at his shoulder. “I swear to god, Snake, you spend half of this organization’s time hiding bodies and the other half trying to mom me about my work habits.”

‘Cause they suck, obviously.” Dave brushed Hal’s hand away and replaced it with his own, thumb searching. “Where does it hurt?”

“Here,” Hal reached back and pointed to a spot, and sucked in a breath as Dave worked at it with his thumb. The sharp pain became dull but remained just as intense, radiating down his arm.

When he couldn't stand it anymore, He shifted out from under Dave’s hand. The pain faded and his shoulder began to tingle, making his arm feel like jelly. “Thanks.” He mumbled, and made to get up but felt a tug on his shirt sleeve as Dave encouraged him to sit again, face stern.

“That was literally 5 seconds Otacon, that couldn’t have been enough to do anything, Here-” Dave shifted so he was sitting sideways. “Face your back towards me?”

Hal hesitantly sat and shifted so he was cross-legged, facing away from Dave. “It was just that one spot, though. no need to go overkill.” He said.

“Nah, I get the sense you've got these all over. See?” Hal grimaced as new discomfort blossomed from various points on his back under the poke of his partner’s fingers.

“Fine, just don't be so rough. You always press super hard.” Dave took that as his cue, and his hands settled on Hal’s shoulders as he searched for a spot. Hal braced himself.

“How else are you supposed to get rid of knots, then?” Dave quipped as he began to press, and Hal was right in bracing himself because boy did it _hurt_. He hung his head and screwed his eyes shut as he felt his muscles protest loudly against the stimulation. It was like Dave’s thumbs were tracing a slow circular path of blunt torture.

“I thought- _hff_ \- massages were supposed to feel good,” Hal muttered through his teeth.

“Exactly, they feel good _after_ all the work is done.” Dave replied, before re-adjusting his hands. Hal winced hard as he felt them press a bit more and begin rubbing side-to-side, and shifted uncomfortably at the weird tingling that followed once Dave stopped to give him time to recover. “You need to relax. It hurts more if you're tense,” The thumbs moved lower to continue.

Hal exhaled and lowered his shoulders, but the pain that followed caught him off guard. “I'm tryi _nngh_.” Dave laughed quietly and Hal slouched as his cheeks heated from embarrassment.

After a few minutes he finally, blissfully, felt his shoulders begin to loosen up. Hal sighed and let his head drop against the side of the couch as he relaxed. The hands eventually tugged him back a bit to encourage him to sit up straight before they slid down to just underneath his shoulder blades. Dave started pressing again, and a big jolt of _something_ shot up Hal’s spine and he gasped in a breath as he unconsciously pulled away. Dave immediately stilled.

“Was it that painful?” His voice was a lot closer than Hal was expecting. He tried to ignore the prickles that crept across the back of his neck.

Hal shifted a bit before speaking. “...That wasn't exactly pain. I don't know, maybe I'm ticklish?” Dave’s hands settled across his shoulder blades again. They felt very warm.

“There's different kinds of pressure points on the back versus the shoulders. These tend to make you jump more than they hurt. It's worse if you're the kind to startle easily.” He said, circling his thumbs on either side of Hal’s spine.

Hal caught the smile in Dave's tone and pouted at the teasing. “It’s not my fault you don't know how to make noise when you move like a normal human being- _Hah!_ ” He arched his back in surprise as Dave hit another sensitive spot.

“Can you blame me? Startling you is fun. Except for right now when you keep pulling away from me. Here-” Dave slowly pushed him until Hal was leaning forward against the arm of the couch. He sighed and brought his arms forward to rest his head against them. No escape now, he might as well get comfortable. This was a bit easier than having to sit up, after all. Dave moved to his lower back.

 

The jolts of weird tension continued and it was very hard for him to keep quiet and not move too much, but every time Dave lifted his thumbs from a spot, the muscle relaxed and the discomfort was replaced with warm tingling that rolled up his spine and ended in goosebumps on his arms. For a few seconds it felt like he could sink into the couch from relaxation before Dave’s thumbs returned and had him squeezing his eyes shut and covering his mouth as he twitched. The alternating tension and pleasure felt very strange and yet it was somehow familiar, reminding him of something.

As Hal mused about that he suddenly became aware of a lot of things - like how Dave had stopped using the tips of his fingers for leverage and instead had slotted his hands around his waist to push in with his thumbs. He had also leaned forward to compensate for the new angle and his breath was fanning across the back of Hal’s neck, and since when had his hands gotten so warm? Since when had the entire living room gotten so warm? Hal let out a shaky breath as Dave insistently dug at a spot on his lower back again, and then snapped his eyes open as he noticed that this time, all that feeling and tension seemed to go straight to his dick.

Oh.

 _That’s_ what this was reminding him of.

Hal grimaced in embarrassment as he tried to ignore the heat and throbbing. Thank god he was facing the arm of the couch where Dave couldn't see. The thumbs finally let up and his brain turned a bit to mush because _god_ did that feel good, and with his guard down he forgot to keep quiet and hummed out a sigh, which he instantly wished he could take back.

"Feel good?" Came Dave’s voice from behind him, and Hal felt his heart drop a bit before he willed himself to calm down. Dave couldn’t see anything from this angle.

"Like I'm melting into the couch. It's weird." Hal mumbled, avoiding the question. Dave huffed out a laugh.

"That's a sign that I'm doing something right. Can you sit up?"

 _Oh god, no._ After a brief moment of debate Hal figured that it would be weirder if he refused, and reluctantly made to sit back up, moving his arm to brace part of his weight in between his crossed legs to try to hide his semi hard-on. There was a pause before Dave released his waist, and he noticed how cold that spot felt before those hands brushed their way up his back, fingers barely touching. Hal fought to contain a shudder and told himself that was because it tickled.

"I missed a spot..." Dave said softly, and then with a bit of hesitation his palms came to heavily rest on the sides of Hal's neck, fingers splaying out across the front as his thumbs touched at the back. Hal had to tilt his head back a bit to give him room, and there was something very intimate about the whole thing that made his dick twitch a few more times as he pictured those hands squeezing ever so slightly- _No, don't think about that_. But it was too late, his pulse sped up in shame and he realized that if Dave hadn’t previously known how keyed up he was, he would definitely know now, the proof was hammering away right underneath his middle fingers.

Dave however made no comment and began to press, and Hal sucked in a breath as pain hit him like a truck. Unlike the other knots it wasn’t dull but sharp, like two hot needles stabbing at either side of his neck vertebrae. It was almost unbearable and he was about to ask for mercy before Dave paused for a second to re-adjust his grip, and the brief flood of pleasure was as acute as the pain that surrounded it, overlapping until he couldn’t tell what he was experiencing. More heat pooled in his groin and Hal hissed through his teeth before clamping his mouth shut and swallowing, feeling Dave's fingers rise and fall along with the motion.

"Good thing I remembered, you must have been carrying so much tension in your neck, too..." Dave’s voice felt like it was caressing his left ear and it sounded so good, all deep and rough and enticing, and in that moment the thumbs at his neck dug a bit harder and the accompanying spike of pain-pleasure made him arch his back again which made the arm he had braced his weight on grind against his hard dick-

Too much.

"Stop," Hal gasped as he jerked his hand up with the speed of a reflex and grabbed Dave's wrist, and everything went silent for a few seconds save for Hal's thudding heart in his ears. Dave's hands lifted from his neck before he felt him scoot away. Hal tried to ignore how cold his back suddenly felt.

 

The silence persisted. Hal tried to breathe as quietly as humanly possible before Dave cleared his throat.

"Sorry if that got you over-excited. It's a normal reaction, happens to everyone."

Hal slowly turned to look at his partner and found him avoiding his eyes, slouching over crossed legs as he ran a hand through his hair.

“Right…” Hal said slowly. Dave made to stand up.

“Want some water?” He asked as he walked to the kitchen.

Hal exhaled and tried to calm down. “Nah, I'm good,” He tried to reach for his coffee but his arms felt like tingly lead. “On second thought, yeah, can you get me some?”

Dave returned and leaned against the back of the couch as his partner gratefully sipped at his water. Hal glanced at Dave, who was still avoiding his gaze.

“Did I overstep a boundary or something?” Dave asked, voice quiet.

“No! No, it- it just, it got to be a little too much, you know?” Hal stammered. “I get kind of…nervous whenever people touch my neck. It felt great, though, thank you.”

Dave half-smiled and gave him a flick on the shoulder. “Always glad to be of service. You should probably sleep soon, it’s almost eleven.” He walked down the hallway, stretching his arms over his head.

Hal waited to hear the door to his partner’s bedroom close before he felt adrenaline grip him again. He slouched over and cradled his head in his hands at the exact same time that Dave, across the house, leaned against the inside of his door and slid down to sit on the floor.

“ _Holy shit_.” They both mumbled in unison, thoughts and hearts racing.

 

They both tried to forget about it. Neither were very successful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOPE YOU GUYS LIKED THIS *EYEBROW WAGGLES X300* We're adults now, time to bump this up to sexual tension land. This fic will have a solid E rating at the very end so yall have stuff to look forward toooo.
> 
> * The joke about machine language is that it's one of the oldest coding languages around, and because it's so old it runs "faster" as in there's less computer work required to translate the code from a readable and typable language into pure instructions. Machine is so difficult for humans to read that even "experts" in the US congress patent office had trouble deciphering it and let a lot of early computer program patent infringement slide cause they couldn't be assed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philanthropy does normal-people things. Hal tries not to think about looming problems on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI YES I'M BACK, THANK YOU FOR BEING SO PATIENT AND I'M SORRY FOR THE GIANT-ASS WAIT. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
> 
> This chap is the calm before the storm. Or, in other words, the fluff before the angst. ;D ;D ;D

It was just their rotten luck that the air conditioner decided to stop working in the dead of Summer. In New Mexico. On a Friday, when nobody could come look at it until the following week.

Hal shoved his hair off of the sweaty forehead it was clinging to and finished powering down his second computer. He hated doing that because he always had important stuff running, but he needed to- having a CPU do work with an ambient temperature this high wasn't exactly smart. He took in a lungful of stale air and leaned over to unplug all the cords. It was also starting to get humid in their apartment, which meant his electronics couldn't stay. They needed to go somewhere else, and thankfully there was an easy solution.

He put all the cables and his keyboard in their usual box and lazily pushed the flaps closed, walking out down the hallway to the front door. When his feet began sticking to the floor he realized he forgot shoes and made way to the kitchen to get them from where they usually lay next to the table.

“Snake, are you home?” He called out. “We need to move some stuff into the storage facility, do you have anyth-” his foot collided with something that grunted and he danced back, holding the box to the side so he could actually see the floor. Oh, there he was.

“...Are you okay?” Hal asked slowly, setting the box down on the counter.

Dave looked miserable. He was laying face-down on the tile, his shirt bunched up around his chest. He turned his head at the question, learning a heat-flushed cheek against his arm.

“I'm doing great,” He said wearily, staring at the wall. Always the sufferer in silence.

“Why are you on the floor?”

“Tile’s still cool. Try it.”

Hal sat down and found that he was right, and gratefully pressed his legs against the slightly cooler linoleum.

“I don't blame you. This certainly isn't Alaska.” He mused, leaning his sweaty back against cabinets. Out of the two of them, Dave understandably had a much more difficult time with hotter climates. He never complained, but Hal knew his partner well enough to know when he was uncomfortable. He was usually subtle about it, tightening his jaw and looking a bit more tired, drinking more water than he normally did, but this level of heat left Hal feeling a bit light-headed so it figures that even Dave would drop his typical stoicism once it got bad enough.

Dave rolled over (and neglected to push his shirt down, Hal didn't mind that much.) and sighed. “No, it isn't. What were you asking me just now?”

“We need to take my computers to the storage unit until the A/C guy gets here Monday, cause I don’t want for them to overheat. I was asking if you had anything you wanted to take as well.”

Dave raised himself onto an arm and ran a hand up his face. “Yeah. My mattress, so I can sleep there.”

Hal knew he was joking but that would have been a great idea if there were enough room. The storage unit was nice and chilly.

“Ha ha. Do you need me to help you get up?”

“I don’t think you’d be able to with those noodle arms of yours, but you can try.”

“You just love to make fun of me, don’t you?” Hal muttered, extending an arm.

After nearly being yanked to the floor by a thoroughly smug Dave, he vowed to never make that offer again.

 

They got Hal’s computers plus other delicate electronics out of the house and into their van. It was over one hundred degrees outside and the six PM sun was so blisteringly hot that it almost hurt. The inside of the van was like an oven before Dave blasted the A/C and they just sat there for a while with the vents pointed directly at their faces, enjoying it before driving off to their rented storage unit. Dave had to keep taking his hands off the steering wheel in order not to burn them. Hal almost seared his leg on the seat belt buckle.

Operating out of Las Cruces, New Mexico at this time of year might have been a bad idea, but they were laying low for a couple of months after a close call and this place was large enough to give them resources to work with, but small enough to not be an obvious hiding place. Either way most of their decisions were the kind to be made on the fly, and they ended up working about 90% of the time, except when things happened like the A/C cutting out. 

The storage facility was all bleached white concrete and corrugated metal, which clanged noisily as Hal inserted his key and pushed the door upwards. There was something about the grid layout of the hallways, the buzzing fluorescent lights, and the way that the floor echoed with each step as they looked for their unit that reminded him uncomfortably of Shadow Moses. He knew by the way Dave’s shoulders tensed a bit as they walked that he felt the same.

At least it was nice and cold.

The door to their unit slid open with a passcode and Dave hefted the tower to one arm and cranked the timer knob on the wall a few times to coax the light to life. Their unit was relatively small and one of 5 or 6 they maintained at various cities throughout the country, stacked almost to the ceiling with boxes filled with all sorts of stuff from spare gun parts and ammo to canned food and clothing. There was a fridge in the corner humming away as it kept their current stock of Nanomachines cold and fresh. Most of the boxes had labels written in sharpie with Dave’s barely-legible excuse for handwriting, with things like weapons and explosives being intentionally left blank or mis-labled for safety. Not like they needed much of that here - New Mexico had some of the loosest gun laws in the nation.

Hal found the boxes his computers came in and heaved the towers into there, lightly tapeing them shut and sliding them into a corner where they would be safe. Dave went to his side of the room and opened a box or two, idly sifting through the contents.

“We should just hang out here for a while, I don’t really feel like going back to a 90-degree apartment.” He said before he paused. “Hey, my books! I thought I left these in Alaska, I didn’t know you packed them!”

Hal turned to find him already sitting on the floor, pulling out novel after novel. The happiness he was used to seeing his partner express was usually relaxed contentment, but there was now a bright, excited look in his eyes that made the usual lines that sat underneath them almost disappear. It was a rare sight. Hal felt his heart skip fondly.

He walked over and peered over Dave’s shoulder, looking at all the various titles spread across the floor. “I guess I forgot to tell you! I had figured you would want them while we were on planes or something.” he replied, watching Dave thumb briskly through a beaten-up copy of  _ Absolute Power _ .

“I’m definitely gonna take a few of these back with me. Don’t you have any of your stuff here?”

“No, most of it is in the unit in Worcester. I never owned a lot of books growing up anyway.”

“ _ You _ ? Yeah, right.”

Hal shrugged and walked over to the fridge to check on the nanos. “No, really. I mainly played with computers. The only books I really ever poured through were old manga, and…” He hated the way he hesitated a bit too long. “My dad’s engineering textbooks.” He finished, popping his neck to try and alleviate the sudden tension in his shoulders. Dave didn’t know a lot about his family but he knew enough to where it was obvious that Hal’s memories of his father weren’t very fond. He was careful to not let much else slip.  _ That  _ can of worms was always saved for some unknown later date. 

_ And just when will that be, Hal? He’s already emptied out most of his demons while drunk and you were there to listen. When are you going to do it? Coward. _

“Hey.”

Hal was shaken out of his thoughts and turned to give his partner a questioning look. Dave was holding up a twenty dollar bill. “This was tucked in one of the books. You wanna get ice cream? My treat.” he said.

“Yeah!” Cash tended to be scarce in their profession (He never felt entirely comfortable with siphoning money out of accounts unless he absolutely  _ had _ to), but they already had necessities for this month budgeted out, so any extra usually went in the “spend on whatever” pile. Or towards snacks. Usually the two overlapped.

 

They locked up and left the storage facility and headed to one of the couple of diners close by. It was relatively full on a Friday evening but the wait wasn’t very long since the dinner rush was just starting. They got a single banana split to share. It arrived, with two spoons stuck on either side of the banana like flags.

Dave sat back in his booth seat and motioned towards the frozen treat, smiling.

“I know it’s not much, but happy early birthday.”

Hal paused with spoon in hand and stared at his friend in mild shock. “How did you know? I don’t think I’ve ever told you.” It felt like he more often forgot about his own birthday these days.

“I saw it on an old driver’s license of yours last year, but it was too late by then so I made a mental note.” Dave took his spoon and excavated a chunk of vanilla ice cream. “We still have some money left, so if there's anything else you want…”

Hal fidgeted and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to contain his smile. “Geez, Dave, you don’t have to spoil me.”

“Why not? I want to.” He winked and it took all of Hal’s willpower to not put his head down on the table to attempt to hide his obvious blush.

“...Thank you.” was all he could  say.

They ate in contented silence, listening to the conversations around them.

“Actually, there is something I’ve been wanting to get,” Hal said. “Nastasha’s book.”

Dave blinked. “Oh yeah, we should get around to reading that, shouldn’t we?” He mused, scratching his chin.  _ In the Darkness of Shadow Moses _ had been sweeping the nation since its release in June. Practically everybody now knew about the existence of Metal Gear, as well as Dave’s involvement as Solid Snake. It was kind of a double-edged sword; on one hand, this would ensure a lot more work (and money) for Philanthropy in the future, as well as possibly secure them a future endorsement by the UN if they could scrape up a squeaky-clean resume fast enough, but it was also not that good for Dave’s codename to be a household one. At least nobody knew for sure what he looked like. Or at least, nobody they  _ knew _ ...

“Do you think they have it in bookstores here?” Hal fished out a banana slice that was floating in ice cream.

“Yep. I know which one has good prices, too.”

They parked close by and walked along an outdoor strip mall, the trip made a little more comfortable by the cooling temperatures and the slight breeze as the sun began to set. They squeezed their way into a tiny bookshop that was tucked between a nail salon and a cash loan store. A bell jingled as Hal pushed open the door. It was small and neat and very quiet, with dark blue carpeted floor and bookshelves in a cheap-looking cherry red finish. A small fan hummed away in the corner from where it was set on the counter. The bookstore owner, Angelica, was a Mexican woman in what appeared to be her early forties with short, boyish hair and a flowered skirt. She looked up from her phone call and gave them a knowing smile as they walked in, and Dave nodded to her. He had definitely been here before.

They browsed the disorganized shelves and it didn’t take them long to find their target, one of about five copies lined up next to each other. They brought it back up to the counter. Hal moved so he was standing behind Dave. They were in a heavily Spanish-speaking town, and it only made sense to let the guy who had proficiency in six languages to do the talking. Hal could barely scrape two.

**((A/N: I have maybe a 10 year old’s grasp of Spanish, so apologies for any bad grammar/word choices. Translation of their convo is at the end of the chapter.))**

“Todo bien?”

“Sí.”

He slid the book to her and she raised an eyebrow at its cover. “Ahh, mucha gente ha venido aquí por comprar éste.” she said, tapping it while she opened the register with her other hand and counted their change. 

Dave shrugged a shoulder. “Sólo queremos ver lo que todos hacen un escándalo.” 

She shook her head. “Las armas de terrorismo del Estados nunca están un escándalo. Pues cualquiera que no los sabe, sabría.” 

“Y recibe Usted negocios, verdad? Entonces bueno que se vende.” Dave said, cracking a grin as he took the book and their change. 

She laughed. “Tiene razón, es lo que importa!” 

They left and started the walk back to their van.

“What did she say?” Hal asked.

“That the US hiding a nuclear tank from the public is just typical terrorism, but she's at least glad that the less jaded population now have the opportunity to know.” Dave answered. “She’s been paying attention enough to have seen it coming, but I can’t say the same about everyone else.”

“No kidding. It’s a big pill to swallow.”

 

They drove around some more and ended up buying cold sodas from a vending machine, still procrastinating on going back home, until they came across a small park. Dave grabbed one of his own books and they situated themselves at a picnic table in the shade and read side-by-side. The outside temperature was now tolerable, pleasant even. The sun flickered lazily through the sparse trees, warm wind ruffled their hair and sometimes threatened to turn the pages of  _ Shadow Moses. _

Time seemed to slip away from them as they relaxed there. Hal liked these parts of their days the most, because he could almost pretend that they were living a relatively normal life. Oftentimes the dynamic of their bubble of privacy was a hostile, nervous one, where  _ us _ and  _ them _ meant  _ us  _ and  _ person who could potentially have us killed or locked up in an instant _ , where they had to constantly keep their heads down and be wary and alert, locking themselves in their apartments for days on end until one or both of them started to get stir-crazy.

Other times, like this, the bubble of privacy became a lot more normal -  _ us _ and  _ them _ simply meant “ _ you’re the one person who knows me the most and I enjoy your company. Other people suck _ ”. Though it never stayed like that for long. They could pretend that they were normal introverts all they wanted, but that facade never lasted more than a couple of days at the most. They had the future of their entire country weighing on both their shoulders, after all. There was always work to be done.

“Otacon,” Hal turned to see his partner had shut  _ Absolute Power _ for the time being and was instead staring up at the sky. “Do you enjoy this kind of life?”

It was as if he had read his mind, which seemed to be happening more and more frequently these days. Hal briefly tried to sort through his complex thoughts about their lifestyle and gave up. “Do you?” he asked back.

“I asked you first.”

_Can’t_ _get out of this one._ Hal leaned his arms onto the table and decided to be honest. “It's stressful.” He said simply, tapping at a rusty nail that was sticking out of the wood. “I really do wish I could live in one place, and talk to other people, and not be afraid of being arrested all the time. But you know all that.” Dave nodded.

“If I didn't have you to guide me through learning how to live-” Hal gestured towards the book. “-like  _ this _ , I'd probably be dead by now.”

Dave tilted his head. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

Hal smiled and shrugged dismissively.

“Besides,” Dave stretched his arms over his head and popped his back. “It's me who's ten times more likely to be arrested at any moment. No doubt there's cam footage of me somewhere.”

“I’d be more worried if there were audio clips of you speaking. They'd be able to clock you in seconds.”

“Nah, maybe they’ll just think I’m some shitty Batman impersonator.”

Hal snickered. “Or the guy who narrates movie trailers.”

Dave looked pensive. “‘Movie trailer guy’? Huh, I’ve been called that before. In High School I think.” Very much unlike Hal, Dave had attended High School for a grand total of one and a half years before dropping out to join the military.

“You sounded like this in  _ high school?! _ ”

He fidgeted slightly in embarrassment at Hal’s reaction. “Well... yeah? Maybe it wasn't as deep, but It always meant adults never believed me when I told them how old I was.”

“I always assumed it was cause you smoked.”

Dave grinned. “I smoked in high school, too.” He dodged Hal’s attempted slap at his arm.

“No! That’s not something to smile about! That’s like… almost twenty years of lung damage!”

“Damn, so you’re okay that I risk being shot every single time we do a mission, yet you can’t stand the fact that I like my cigs?”

Hal didn’t have a rebuttal for that and sighed dramatically as he leaned his chin onto his crossed arms. Dave mirrored his position and they both watched the trees sway as the sun grew ever more orange.

“But I don’t hate it at all. Our lifestyle, I mean.” Hal said. “It’s stressful and dangerous, sure, but I've also never felt happier with myself. I'm- I mean,  _ we’re- _ doing something right, you know?”

Dave nodded. “I know.”

Hal tilted his head to look at him. “Why do you ask?”

“You're not as used to this kind of life as I am.” he closed his eyes and shrugged. “Just checking in, is all.”

“So, do  _ you  _ enjoy this, or are you just ‘used to it’?”

Hal felt a gentle weight press into his shoulder as Dave leaned against him, just a little bit.

“I like it, but it's a hell of a lot more enjoyable with someone else around.” Dave said warmly. Hal paused and shyly leaned back, making their elbows and arms touch.

“Yeah. It is.” He whispered.

They stayed like that for a little longer.

Hal felt, not for the first time that year, like there was something that was decidedly being left unsaid between them. But did anything else need to be said? While Dave could have meant the gesture in  _ that _ way, there was also something simple and straightforward about it that didn’t necessitate such thought. He had spoken the plain truth with no frills and had taken an action to back up his words, as he usually did. 

Because he was right, it _was_ more enjoyable with someone else around. Someone you trusted. Someone you loved, however ambiguously. That made it absolutely worth all the stress to be currently fostering what Hal had a feeling would be one of the most important relationships he’s ever had, despite their various differences.

It was a feeling that was all too easy to overthink. Hal decided to not overthink it, because he had a lot of other more important stuff he should be thinking about, like the future.

The uncomfortably inevitable future. 

“I'm nervous about the upcoming mission, Dave.” He said quietly.

He had been worrying about it for months and the time was finally dawning near. He would have to infiltrate alongside Snake in order to push past some particularly nasty security that he would have been otherwise unable to crack remotely. It seemed relatively simple, except that Hal, with his very human fears and lack of training, would rather jump in front of a train than put himself in danger like that, no matter how well he would be protected. He wasn’t just nervous, he was  _ terrified. _

But there was nothing else they could do. The call to action had come, and Philanthropy always had to answer to the best of its ability.

Dave shifted alongside him. “You’re going to be okay. It's just in, grab data, out. I'll be right with you the whole time.”

“I know, but…”

“Hal, don't spiral. You can trust me. We've been through the route tens of times already.” Dave leaned against him just a little harder before backing off. Hal missed the contact but nodded anyway. 

He knew Dave was nervous too, but worrying about it so much did nothing. They needed to go into this with confidence, like they always did.

 

The mission, as he would later experience, was mostly a success. But Hal also saw something that would put his normally iron-clad trust in Snake under an intense and violent strain.

 

**[Translation of bookstore convo:]**

“Ah, lots of people have come here to buy this book.”

“We just wanted to see what everyone was making a fuss (literally, scandal) over.”

“Weapons of terrorism from the States are hardly a scandal. But at least anybody who didn’t know about them can know now.”

“And you get business, right? It’s good that the book sells well, then.”

“You’re right, that’s what  _ really _ matters!”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An accident occurs. Philanthropy struggles to come to terms with some uncomfortable truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes before we begin- This chapter is dark. It contains mild gore. It will probably make you feel upset. That last thing is my intention. 
> 
> Okay? Okay. Here we go.

Snake had always considered himself very good at remaining calm during the more tense or dangerous parts of a mission. He was an expert at sealing away emotions and nerves and instead only focusing on exactly what needed to be done and doing it quickly. It was a learned trait, practically beaten into him and all his fellow agents during their time in Foxhound, and was one of the few reasons why they always went by codenames - You had to learn how to separate yourself from your mission persona, and shove all emotion, all fears and second thoughts so far back into your head that they became vague background noise.

But for a very brief moment, in the instant that he heard a gunshot from behind them and saw a spray of blood as Otacon toppled forwards to the ground, a white-hot spear of dread tore through his chest with such force that it threatened to send him to his knees.

He now struggled, tried his absolute best to immediately seal away the deafening noise of his thoughts going a thousand miles an hour, to compress and shove all that humanity out of his cerebral cortex, but he couldn't. His ears began to ring as he panicked, mentally screaming at himself to _do something do something do something-_

In one quick motion he drew his SOCOM, turned around, raised it. He took a step forward, fired, and then he

 

 

Was by Otacon’s side. The swirl of panic threatened to return full force until he realized the blood was only coming from the engineer’s leg. Otacon was hyperventilating, face white as a sheet, and trying to scoot away using his good leg as support. Snake crouched and tentatively reached forward to touch his leg and he furiously shook his head and scooted away faster.

“No! Get away from me!” he wailed, voice cracking, eyes wide.

Snake moved towards him and gently held down his leg, rolling up his jeans to inspect the injury.

“Otacon, it’s just me. You’re injured and in shock but I’m going to get you out of here. It’s not fatal, you’re going to be fine.”

Snake breathed deeply in relief when he saw that it was only a graze wound, the bullet wasn’t embedded anywhere, it had instead torn a long chunk across the side of his calf. It was bleeding quite a bit but not gushing, but would need pressure and stitches. After a second of thinking Snake moved to take ahold of Otacon’s lab coat.

“I’m going to tear your coat. I have to make a bandage to hold you off until we can get to the car- hey _-_!”

Otacon was crying, shoving his hands away and kicking at him with his good leg. Snake took his shoulders and squeezed them in an attempt to ground him, but it only made him panic more.

“Hal, _stop_. I’m just trying to help you.” He said seriously, staring him in the eyes.

“Let go of me!!”

Snake felt his patience wane and tugged his partner towards him. “Quit being an asshole and cooperate,” He muttered, ignoring his struggling and tearing a strip off the hem of his coat, tying it tight around his leg to help stop the bleeding. A small part of him was tempted to tranq him to make this easier. Why was he acting like this?

Then again, Otacon was a civilian. Civilians tended to act unpredictably when ...shot. Yeah, okay. He supposed that made sense.

Snake went back to running through his mental checklist. They needed to get out of here, fast.

“I’m going to carry you piggyback. Can you try to climb on? You might have to put weight on your bad leg but only for a second.” He said, still making sure that he was being descriptive enough to get through to his shocked partner. Otacon was appearing to calm down slightly and only glared at him for a few seconds, taking a breath as if to say something before reluctantly nodding, crawling up to Snake’s back and wrapping his arms around his neck. Snake took his legs in his hands and stood.

He started to jog out of there, retracing his steps back to where they entered. Thank god the cameras were hacked and they had at least gotten the data already, and there didn’t seem to be anybody else around except for that security guy, who was now dead. ... _Shit_.

“Tap twice behind my ear. I need to call Mei-Ling.” He said. He listened to the codec ring and waited for her to answer as he reached their van and unlocked the back door, checking obsessively behind his shoulders to make sure they weren’t being followed. He was depositing his partner in the backseat when she picked up.

“Snake, oh my god, what happened?!”

“Otacon got shot, as you saw. But It’s just a graze wound and he’ll be fine. I’m exfiltrating with him now.” He got in the front seat and started the van. “I don’t have time to get rid of that guard’s body so I need you to send someone over there to clean up. Did you manage to keep ahold of the cams?”

“O-okay, will do. Um, yes, I had the cams routed to my computer the entire time, they won’t have any footage of you. You will need to take care of Otacon ASAP though, we don’t know if that might get infected or not.”

“I know, I’m gonna do it now. Where’s a good spot to park?”

“There’s a wheat field around thirty minutes off from where you are. I’ll send the coords to your radar.”

“Okay. Out.”

“Wait, Snake?”

He was busy backing out of their spot. “Yeah?”

“Why did you…?” She trailed off, seeming worried.

“Why did I what? Did I miss something?” He replied urgently.

“...No, you didn’t... Nevermind. Focus on Otacon. Out.” She hung up.

Snake grimaced at her behavior but shrugged it off. He had a lot more important things to be thinking about than unprofessionalism. She was probably just shaken at Otacon’s injury.

As he was driving he noticed when glancing in the rear-view mirror that his face and neck were covered in a spray of blood. _What the hell?_ He yanked off his bandana and hastily wiped his face clean. Hal’s leg was never gushing, it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere but on his hands, and the guard he killed was too far away...

...Whatever. Again, more important things to worry about.

“Hey Otacon, Hal, talk to me. You doing okay?” He said, taking a ramp onto the highway.

He heard his partner shift in the backseat, breath shaky, before managing a “Not really.”

“I know it must hurt like hell but I’m gonna give you a nice big shot of anesthesia before you get stitches. But you have to stay awake until then, so what did you have for breakfast this evening?”  

“Corn flakes, with banana. I didn’t eat much of them though.” his voice was quiet but at least it was intelligible.

Snake tensed up and when he heard sirens but thankfully it was only an ambulance. “Yeah. You were pretty nervous and you don’t eat much when you’re nervous.” He said absently.

“Of course I was nervous, look what happened.” Otacon’s voice became strained and he started to pant. “ _Shit-_... Dave, this-... is starting-... to hurt bad. Please hurry.” His adrenaline must be wearing off.

“Mmm, you haven’t started crying yet, so I still have time to take the scenic route.” Snake said, without really thinking.

“Don’t fucking-... joke like that, what’s-... wrong with you?!”

He blinked in surprise at his partner’s aggressive response, then mentally kicked himself. He kept forgetting that _being shot,_ even if a flesh wound, was kind of a huge deal to civilians, so now really wasn’t the best time for dark humor. Otacon also usually didn’t swear this much, so this was a good indicator of his current emotional state.

“Sorry, sorry. You’re gonna be okay, we’re almost there.” He took an exit ramp into a small town, then passed its outskirts into the field and went far enough in to where he was sure they wouldn’t be seen from the road. He stripped his vest off, took off his gloves, and jogged to the back of their van to wash his hands and get the supplies. He pulled on medical gloves, tied his hair back, and carried everything to the backseat.

Otacon was tense but cooperative and didn’t make any conversation as Snake worked. He bit hard on the seatbelt and wailed as his wound was cleaned but relaxed noticeably into covering his face and sniffling after being given anesthesia. It was a nasty-looking gash, but thankfully there wasn’t a lot of tissue that was missing.

As he stitched, Snake mused that this was the first time he had ever given his partner this level of medical attention - it was always the other way around. Otacon was squeamish but still a very capable surgeon and had picked up his own teachings incredibly quickly. It probably also helped that his only patient had given him plenty of opportunities to practice.

Eventually he was done, and he dressed the wound, threw away the gloves, and got back to driving as his partner drifted in and out of sleep.

He made it home no problem. As he turned the van off he suddenly became aware of a dull throb around his right temple. He touched it and winced. When had he ever hit his head? He shoved the weirdness into the back of his mind as he carried his friend into their house.

Dave spent the rest of that night keeping close watch on Hal, who at least for a few days would have to be kept on pretty heavy duty painkillers and wouldn't be able to walk without limping for a couple weeks.

Hal was very distant and cold and didn't speak much to him. Dave knew that made sense considering his situation but a very small part of him was hurt. He kinda felt like Hal’s injury was his fault, a failure on his part to protect his partner. It was just a warning shot but it could have been a _lot_ worse, and then what would he have done?

He had a disturbing dream when he crashed later that morning.

He was laying naked on the linoleum floor in the facility they had just infiltrated and he was tearing at his own flesh with his nails. He realized that he was dreaming and immediately tried to will himself to wake up before anything worse happened, but he couldn’t. He had somehow managed to hack his chest and abdomen open and his dream-self reached inside, gripped at something, and roughly pulled it out. Imaginary but excruciating pain tore through his mind but he couldn't even scream. He dropped a spent bullet shell to the floor where it pinged loudly and became a deafening ring in his ears, and could only watch as his dream-self brought his gore-covered hands up to his face. The smell of blood assaulted his senses as he felt himself begin to hook his pointer fingers into his open eyes-

He jerked awake with a sharp gasp and frantically felt along his chest before he sunk back into the bed in relief, shaking slightly.

Was he really _this_ upset over Hal? He found that hard to believe. Maybe it was just a bunch of random bad shit in his brain mixing itself together into something worse, It's not like he was unfamiliar with that happening.

He heard Hal whispering to somebody through his open bedroom door and figured he was on a call with Mei-Ling, probably just having her keep him company. He couldn't really make out what they were saying but could tell by the cadence and speed of his words that he was upset. His ears perked up when at some point he heard the word “Snake”, the consonants easy to pick out.

The mysterious bruise on the side of his head throbbed as if mocking him.

Dave irately turned over and tried to go back to sleep, feeling like there were too many things that were _off_. Like there was something important that he was missing, but nobody was telling him what. It was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Later that evening he tried to clear his conscience.

  


“I feel like shit about your leg.” He said simply, laying on the couch and reading while Hal had moved to the breakfast table and was doing work. “Like I could have done something to prevent it from happening.”

He heard Hal pause in his typing. “You really couldn’t. This mission was just…” He sighed and rubbed at his face. “I don’t know if I want to tag along with you ever again.” Dave winced, feeling like he detected an accusation in that sentence.

“Yeah, I get it. I know it can’t have been easy that you had to watch me take him out in person, either.”

“Really? I think you’re greatly understating how ‘not easy’ it was.” Hal said coldly, starting to type again. “What you did was unnecessary and _disgusting-_ ”

“-Of course it was necessary. You've watched me shoot people dozens of times, you think I’m just gonna tranq someone who was a second away from killing you?”

Hal slowly, too slowly, turned his head and stared at him, eyes wide.

Dave felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as the atmosphere in the room suddenly changed.

“Snake,” Hal said, before wetting his lips and hesitating. “A-are you pulling my leg or something?” he asked quietly.

“No, I’m not. I shot him and he died, what more is there to this?”

Hal continued to stare at him, mouth open. A short sound came out before he was silent for a few more seconds, then he furiously shook his head and began typing something on his laptop rapidly.

“David, I need for you to tell me what happened when I got shot. Recount the events, exactly as you remember them.” His voice shook.

Dave stood up and walked towards the table, alarmed. “What’s this about? Why would you need me to tell you that?” He demanded, anxiety shoving its way through his stomach. Hal looked entirely too pale for this to be any normal debriefing question.

His gut feeling had been right this entire time- there was _something wrong_.

Hal quickly turned his laptop away so he couldn’t see it. “Just tell me! This is important!”

Dave paused and blinked before clearing his throat.  “Okay. ...Um. We were getting ready to exfiltrate, and we were double-checking that an electronic lock was reset correctly. A guy rounded the corner at the other end of the hallway and shot you in the leg as a warning. I took out the SOCOM and turned around to fire, it hit him close to his left eye and he died, then I checked your injury-”

“No.” Hal cut him off. “That’s wrong. That’s not what happened at all.”

Dave could only stare at him. A stone-cold lump settled in his throat and quieted his words. “...What do you mean ‘that’s wrong’?”

Hal said nothing, his hands began to shake as he clicked a few times, appearing to look for something. Dave couldn’t ignore his anxiety anymore and leaned into him, grabbing his shoulder. “You need to tell me what’s going on. _Now_.” he said through grit teeth. Hal flinched hard and cowered away, and hastily slid his laptop to the other side of the table.

“Just... press play. Hit the spacebar.” he said, putting his head in his hands.

Dave clenched his fists and walked back to his chair, looking at what he recognized was one of the cam feeds of the facility they were just in.  He looked at the thumbnail image of the black-and-white feed- it was stationed to look lengthwise down the hallway in which Hal got shot. There were nobody visible because the door they were standing at was just a touch out of its field of view.

He took a breath and hit play.

 

After about 5 seconds the guard he had killed came walking up from around the corner at the bottom of the video, gun drawn. He stepped into the hallway and aimed, then fired. Exactly one second later, Dave saw a muzzle flash from the very top of the video and the guard spasmed and collapsed to the ground, clutching at his leg.

Dave had no memory of shooting him in the leg.

He stared in anxious confusion at the feed as he saw himself walk down from the top of the frame towards the guard, who attempted to scoot towards his dropped gun. Dave kicked it away from him and bent down, hoisted him up by his shirt and slammed him against the wall. Dave watched himself maintain a vacant, trance-like expression as he threw right hook after right hook into the guy’s face. The guard struggled and kicked and Dave shifted his grip so that it was around his throat as his blows became more targeted and vicious. Black flecks flew from the man’s broken nose, then his mouth as he lost teeth.

Ice skittered through Dave’s veins as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. He had absolutely zero memory of any of this happening, but it was all right there, plain and clear on the cam’s feed. He took a hard jab to the temple from his frantically struggling opponent and in the present raised a hand to feel the no longer mysterious spot.

In the feed he saw himself recover and swap hands to punch the man in the liver. The guard sank to his knees but Dave held him up by the sides of his head, and began to push his thumbs into his eyes.

Blood speckled onto his eerily blank face as the guard writhed in his grip, mouth open in a scream that no microphone was present to pick up. Dave slammed his head into the wall then dropped him to the floor, staring dully ahead while the man foamed at the mouth and seized. A few seconds passed before he stepped back, drew his SOCOM, and fired to finish the job. He began to turn and walk offscreen, presumably back towards Hal.

He had seen enough. He paused the feed.

 

The silence was deafening.

His partner was sitting sideways in his chair, head turned away, digging his nails into his arms.

“Hal…”

He said nothing.

“Hal?”

“I had to watch you do that.”

Dave had no idea what to say in response. He felt stuck, like this was far too much information for him to process at once and he couldn’t come up with any sort of reaction.

Hal abruptly stood up and slammed his fists on the table. “Can you even begin to understand how horrifying that was?!” He shouted. “And you’re telling me that you don’t even fucking _remember it_ ? Did you just black out or something?! _Did your brain just shut off?!?”_ He had never heard Hal raise his voice this much. Not at him, not ever.

“I… I don’t know, I guess I panicked-”

Hal immediately snatched the laptop back to his side. “ _That_ -” He pointed hard at the screen. “was not “panic”. I have seen you panic and it’s not _that._ ”

Anger simmered in Dave’s chest. “Have you seriously never heard of people shutting down when under stress?! I watched you get shot, for fuck’s sake! _”_

“That’s not an excuse to-... to gouge out someone’s eyes!!”

Dave stood up and kicked his chair back. “You think I was in control of any of that?! _I thought you had died!!”_

“Oh my god, you're being so-...!” Hal pressed his hands to his face and seethed into them in frustration. “There is so much _wrong_ here but you’re too busy trying to defend yourself to see the big picture!”

“Fine, you fucking prick, tell me what the big picture is, then!” Dave snarled, crossing his arms and sitting back down.

“You entered this state. This _uncontrollably_ _violent_ state that you apparently have no memory of yet remained completely conscious during, and beat someone to death. That's not a normal reaction to stress at all! How the fuck does this not terrify you?!”

Something in his mind clicked as he finally absorbed the entire situation. Dave’s anger rapidly lost steam as a cold numbness crept through his body. It was the bleak, depressing feeling of _familiarity._ He slouched and dug his hands through his hair, looking at the floor.

Hal stared at him, noticing his reaction. “You’re not shocked at any of this.” He said flatly.

Upon receiving no answer, he swallowed nervously and leaned forward. “David, please tell me this hasn’t happened before. Please?” He said softly, face white as a sheet.

Dave said nothing. There was no point.

“Oh my god.” Hal muttered in horror. “What? …. _When?!_ I-...” He tugged at his hair. “Why would you not tell me about this?? I thought we were clear on your symptoms already!” he cried.

Dave hunched his shoulders. “I didn't want to tell you, I thought-”

“-Do you think that matters if you ‘wanted’ to?? This isn't just a personal issue! When we formed Philanthropy I specifically asked you to give me a complete history of your mental health so that I could accommodate you, and you just _left this out?!_ ”

“It hadn’t happened in almost 7 years, okay?” Dave grit his teeth. “I thought I had a lid on them, lots of things have improved since then.” He knew his argument was weak.

Hal shook his head and leaned forward. “Well, that's not the case anymore, is it? How can you be sure this won't happen again?” He said, affixing Dave with a look that asked too many difficult questions he was unable to answer. He felt the last pieces of his courage crumble away, so he got up and began to walk out of the kitchen.

“I’m not having this conversation anymore. Come back to me tomorrow.”

“No. You can't just run away from this!” Hal said firmly, standing up and walking towards him. David stopped and squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that his partner was right.

He always was.

Dave didn't care. He kept walking.

Hal angrily called his name and continued to follow him, moving surprisingly fast despite his leg. Dave reached his bedroom door and moved to close it, but Hal grabbed at the side, placing his hand in the way.

“Fuck off.”

“No!”

“How much do you like your fingers?” Dave said lowly. He started to push the door shut, waiting for Hal to panic and give up. He did just that, whimpering and yanking his hand from the narrowing opening, allowing Dave to immediately shut and lock it. He recognized that it was mean but he didn't care. He just wanted to be alone.

 

It was an entire minute before he heard Hal speak through the door.

“I thought you were going to kill me, back there in the facility.”

Dave sighed from where he was lying on the bed. “Of course not. You know I wouldn't.” he said tiredly.

It was only when he heard Hal begin to cry that he couldn’t ignore the guilt anymore. He got up and crept to the door, noting that Hal's voice was coming from close to the ground. Dave crouched and touched the wood.

“Hal. I wouldn’t. You're my best friend, I would never lay a finger on you.” He repeated. He felt like an asshole insisting this so soon after the door, but it was the truth. They both knew that.

“You almost did.”

Dave felt his thoughts screech to a halt.

“...What did you say?” he said slowly, feeling dread creep across his skin as he listened to Hal try and hold in sobs.

“You didn't snap out of it right away. After you dropped him, you s-started to walk towards me.”

His heart hammered in his chest as he pressed his ear to the door.

“You... you were covered in his blood and you were looking at me with that same-” Hal wheezed in a breath, his words coming faster. “- _fucking_ _blank_ expression! You stood there right in front of me, just looking down and watching me bleed! You had your SOCOM in hand and I was c-convinced you were gonna raise it!!” His sobs and gasps started to interrupt his speech. “How can you-- not remember-- _any of this?!!”_

It was like a bucket of ice water had just been dumped on him. _That_ was why. That was why Hal had reacted the way he did when he was trying to assess his injury. That wasn’t shock, it was _fear_.

“Oh my god.” He whispered. He felt above himself for the doorknob, and opened it to find Hal sitting on the floor, knees brought up to his chest. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Dave tentatively scooted forward and wrapped his arms around his partner as he continued to cry.

He noticed how Hal stiffened and didn’t embrace him back.

Dave clenched his jaw so hard that his teeth creaked. He tried to keep his breathing steady as he absorbed the fact that Hal, his best friend (more than that), was _scared of him._ Not in the shy way that he was when they first met, but from a very real, justified perception of himself as a threat. This wasn’t fair at all. He didn’t do anything to deserve this. Or maybe he had. These were the consequences of nobody else’s actions but his own.

Things were just too good between them for too long, an entire year and a half before he fucked everything up as he usually did, imagine that.

Hal took a rattling breath against his shoulder. “Do you finally understand why I’m so upset? If you hadn't… woken up in time…” He couldn’t finish his sentence and began to shake his head instead, fisting his hands into the front of Dave’s shirt.

_I could have killed him._

“I didn’t know about any of this. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Dave mumbled, still partially in disbelief. He ran his hands along Hal’s back in a futile attempt to comfort him.

“I’m going to have nightmares about this, Dave.”

Every single word in that sentence stabbed directly through his heart, making it hard to breathe. Dave felt the floor drop from underneath him and he was suddenly in the year 1999, kneeling in front of the towering form of Metal Gear D, piloted by none other than Frank Jaegar. The scene changed again and they were fighting hand-to-hand, he had been sent to the metal floor from a well-aimed punch to the liver, squinting through the blinding pain to see his former best friend advancing on him. The sudden and intense fear he felt was indescribable,  he had no idea how he had managed to scramble back up and keep going through the haze of emotion in his mind that a man he had thought he could trust with his life was currently trying to kill him.

It was a scene he would be unable to get out of his head for months, years.

Frank had been his only friend, before he met Hal.

The brutal cycle continues. The victim becomes the monster.

 

Dave barely managed to shove himself back to the present, and he shakily pulled back. “No,” He whispered. “No no no, please don’t, you know that I would _never-..._ ” He cupped Hal’s face and wiped his tears away with his thumbs. Hal yelped and shoved his hands away, making Dave numbly realize what that gesture was so close to imitating, what Hal had seen him do to someone else not 36 hours earlier.

This was irreversible. Hal would never want him to touch him again.

An intense wave of nausea hit him and he got up and sprinted to the bathroom. His ears were ringing so badly that he almost didn’t hear himself throw up. As he washed his face, his vision began to tunnel, and Dave realized distantly that he couldn’t stay here. He needed to leave. Now.

Breathing raggedly, he yanked on his shoes and stumbled out the door. He got in the van, struggling to remember how to drive through the static that permeated his mind.

And he tried not to think about Hal Emmerich.

He tried not to think about anything

 

he drives to that same field

 

he stops turns it off locks

 

himself

 

in

  
  


 

he

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave and Hal take some time off to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very mentally exhausted from certain rough events in my life right now, so the pacing on this chapter might be kinda weird. im definitely not happy with it BUT im tired of looking at it so I was just like "fuck it im putting it up" so pls. be gentle.

He woke up.

Dave blinked his vision into focus, seeing first an upholstered ceiling, then the interior of his van as he glanced around. He was laying sprawled across the back seat, shirtless, and it was still dark outside. He sat up and winced - it felt as if his entire body were sore, and it took him a minute of thinking before he realized why the hell he was laying in his van parked alone in a field - he had isolated himself before having another breakdown.

That was pretty quick thinking. At least his worthless ass could do _something_ right.

It was probably good that he didn't remember any of it.

Dave started the van, turned on a light, and set to inspecting and cleaning his self-inflicted injuries which thankfully weren't bad at all. He tidied up the van’s interior, grimacing in disgust at something he noticed that he decided to avoid thinking about from then on. He threw on a fresh shirt, got in the front seat, and began the drive of shame back to his-... _their_ house.

He felt exhausted.

The sun began to rise as he stopped at a drive-thru and bought himself and Hal some coffee and doughnuts. It was a shitty attempt at a peace offering, but what else could he do.

The person working the drive thru gave a look towards the obviously human bite wound on the side of his left hand and the angry red scratches along his neck, but said nothing. At least she didn't see the worst ones that were all down his chest and stomach. There was also still dried blood underneath his fingernails, he would have to wash that out later.

He crept back into their house. The early morning light cast across their living room in faded golds, illuminating Hal who was sleeping on the couch. He bolted upright when he heard the door shut and they stared at each other for a few agonizing seconds before he leaned back onto the couch.

“Hey.”

“...Hey.” Dave replied hesitantly. He stood there for a few more moments and thought through about ten different things to say before he settled on “I got us breakfast.”.

“Okay.” Hal got up and moved towards the table. They sat in silence and started to eat, Dave suddenly remembered his hand and moved to put it under the table, but Hal noticed it before he could. He watched his partner’s eyes travel from the angry bite wound to alight on his scratched neck.

“...What did you do.” Hal said. He sounded tired, resigned.

Dave looked into his coffee. “Nobody saw. I made sure I was alone. Drove to a field.” He felt intensely self-conscious, as if all of the ways in which he wasn’t normal, most of which Hal already knew and never judged him by, were suddenly under intense scrutiny. Hal continued to look at him as he processed what he meant, then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’m really sorry about the way I acted last night.” Dave said slowly, knowing that an apology wasn’t even close to what would be required to fix anything.

“I know you are.”

More silence followed. Hal shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Look. I’m not going to scold you about this anymore, and I’m sorry too for getting so worked up.” He said, dunking a piece of doughnut in his coffee. “A lot of this is on me. I should have foreseen the danger in tagging along with you and ignored this lead. But I wanted to be brave, I wanted to impress you, so I kept quiet about it.” He glanced back up at Dave before continuing.

“And then, I got shot. You couldn't handle the idea of losing me, and that sent you into a psychotic episode. I confronted you about it, and you…” He glanced again at Dave’s hand. “Went right back into another one, I’m assuming.”

Dave stared intense holes into the floor and anxiously bounced his leg, saying nothing. He had nothing _to_ say, really.

“David,” Hal said softly. “I care about your safety more than I do this organization. If this kind of work isn't good for your mental health, then there's no shame in quitting. Don’t put yourself in danger like this.”

Dave shook his head. “No, I want to keep doing this. I've already tried to live a normal life, you know that.”

His partner leaned onto an elbow. “I knew you were going to say that, and I can’t stop you. But even then, Philanthropy stuff will have to take a break. We need to recover from this and figure out what to do.”

“Yeah. Thought so.” Dave took a sip of his coffee and couldn’t stop himself from the next thing that came tumbling out of his mouth. “You’re not going to leave, are you?” That was horribly selfish. Why the fuck did he ask that.

“I made a promise to you, remember?” Hal smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. That combined with the wording of that answer made the proverbial knife currently embedded in his heart give a painful twist.

Eventually they finished, and Hal stood. “I'm going to go back to sleep. Thanks for buying us breakfast, we’ll deal with more of this later-” he said hastily, starting to walk past Dave to get to the hallway. He had almost passed before Dave reached out and took ahold of his arm, stopping him. Hal immediately tensed but stood still. They both stayed silent for a few seconds, side-by-side, facing away from each other.

“I’m gonna ask you something, and I need for you to be honest.” Dave said, voice quiet.

“Okay.”

“Are you scared of me?”

He got the pause that he was expecting.

Hal cleared his throat before speaking. “I have watched you kill people many times, through cams and through my computer. That separation made it easy for me, because I could pretend that it wasn't real.”

“But…” Dave prompted.

“But. This time,” He heard a sigh. “Being physically there, watching, _hearing_ it. How you did it, the fact that you weren’t… _there_ when you did it, and what happened afterwards… Again, I’m sorry about my over-reaction, I know in my heart that you would never hurt me, but...” Hal paused again. “I can only take so much. I just need time off, I hope you understand.”

“...Alright.”

Hal left, his bedroom door closed, and the silence was so heavy that it felt like cotton in his ears. Dave distracted himself by digging up the MP3 player Hal gave him for Christmas and going out for a run with the volume up so high that he couldn't hear himself think.

 

Philanthropy ceased all activity for the next five weeks. A lot shorter than Dave was expecting the break to be, yet it also felt like the longest five weeks of his life.

Hal was very quiet and avoidant for the first week or so, hardly ever coming out of his room. That was the worst part, but Dave gave him the space he needed, and checked up on him frequently to make sure he was eating well.

One morning at the end of the first week, Dave was washing the dishes when he felt somebody hug him. He paused and turned. Hal was in the shirt and boxers he usually wore to sleep, wasn't wearing his glasses, and was currently latched onto him, shaking. He was staring wide-eyed at the wall.

“Hey,” Dave said softly, and wrapped an arm around his partner. “You alright?”

Hal pressed his forehead into his shoulder as he shook his head _no_ and started to cry silently. It didn't take much thought to guess what must have happened. Dave quickly shoved down the bile that rose in his throat and hugged him back, burying his face in his hair.

_This is your fault. Why are you pretending you can comfort him when you're the source of his pain?_

It was disgustingly unfair that their first actual hug had to be in circumstances like this.

No other words were spoken between them that day.

Dave impulsively left their house that night with a fake persona memorized and got _very_ drunk at a bar and nearly ended up having sex with some cute girl who was making eyes at him. He went so far as to have her pressed against the door of her bedroom before he abruptly backed out because he couldn’t stand the guilt.

She wore glasses.

He staggered home and woke up later in his own bed (thank god) and felt like an idiot. Why the hell did he do that? This was just him reverting to his Alaska behavior all over again, he was better than this. It's not like Hal was never going to talk to him again.

...Was he?

He pressed his palms hard into his eyes to try and stop the way they suddenly stung. But he waited.

By the middle of the second week, Hal was regularly coming out of his room, but they still didn't talk. That made being in the house somehow _more_ difficult, so Dave holed himself up at a library where he either read or used the media center to marathon Star Trek, only really coming home to make food and sleep.

It took every single ounce of his willpower not to buy liquor.

 

On one day when it was particularly hard to get out of bed, he gathered his courage, activated his codec and called Mei-Ling. She picked up rather quickly.

“Hi, Snake. Is everything alright?”

“I want to apologize.”

Mei paused and sighed. “I know how easy it is to blame yourself, but don’t. You had no control over any of this happening. At the end of the day, Otacon and I are just concerned for your health and safety.”

Dave slid a hand over his eyes. “That's not what he's making it seem like.” He muttered.

“You know that he's just shaken by what happend and needs time to process it. That doesn't change that he still cares deeply for you.”

“Mmm.”

Again, she paused for a few seconds, appearing to choose her words carefully.

“Snake, I can't pretend to know what it's like to have a mental illness. But, like you, and unlike Otacon, I've worked in the black-ops business for a while and I've _seen this happen before_. Just like the military, this line of work often places people into intense situations that worsen their symptoms. They then break under the stress and make mistakes that get themselves and others hurt. But that doesn't mean it's their fault, or that they were weak, or a lost cause. It never does.”

“However much of a mistake it was, I still could’ve killed him-”

“David, please listen to me.” She said firmly. “While that is true, Otacon isn’t the only victim in this situation. You are doing the right thing and giving him the space he needs, but _you deserve reassurance too_ . Your lapse was because of a perfect storm of conditions that weren’t within your control at all, and it put _you_ in just as much danger as it did him.”

“...Yeah, Okay.” Dave knew she was right, but he still felt uncomfortable about believing her. Either way he was just glad to hear someone talking directly to him after this much silence. He then frowned as he realized something. “Wait, how do you know that I’m giving him space?”

“I’ve been talking to him.” Oh, right. They were close friends, of course she would be. “Is there anything you want for me to say?” She asked.

“Tell him I miss him.” Dave spoke without thinking, then immediately cringed at himself. “Nevermind, that’s not what I-”

Mei giggled. “I’ll do that. And don’t worry, he’ll know what you mean."

 

Hal began sparsely speaking to him on the Tuesday of the third week, and asked if they could watch a movie together. Dave had to ignore the way his heart leapt. They bought microwave popcorn and dug up a DVD of _Contact_ , a comfortable favorite of both of theirs. Hal didn’t say a single word throughout the entire movie, yet over the course of the film he drifted closer and closer to where Dave was seating on their couch until they were touching shoulders, and there he stayed. Even though the second they finished Hal shut himself in his room again and didn’t come out for the rest of the day, it was extremely comforting.

They slowly settled into something that resembled their old schedule, not speaking as much as usual but eating dinner together, going for walks, et cetera. The feel of the air inside the house was still at times awkward but no longer as heavy and cold as it once was. Dave was ecstatic but remained very patient and careful that he wasn’t being pushy, and eventually by the start of the fourth week, Hal began to relax back into his chatty and smart-alecky self

At the end of the fourth week, they were looking through their storage unit for more blankets (the weather in Connecticut was starting to get very cold) when Hal spoke up.

“Hey. I’m feeling pretty okay to keep going.”

Dave turned from the box he was looking through and kept his face as straight as he could manage. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He tilted his head and looked at his partner carefully. Hal still had dark circles under his eyes that told him he wasn’t sleeping much. “You sure you're not pretending?”

Hal smiled, and it was genuine. “I've been through worse and come out fine.”

“You know,” Dave said as he turned again and resumed his sorting. “What you told me last month about me not having to do this if it was messing too much with my mental health, that also applies to you.”

“That’s true.”

“So, I want to make sure you're absolutely sure about this.”

“I'm sure. I'm itching to hack into places and shit-talk bad security practices with you again, I didn’t think I’d miss it this much.”

 _Fuck_ . That sentence absolutely should not have made him as excited as it did. Dave bounced on his toes a little bit, disguising it as absent fidgeting. He couldn’t act like everything was back to normal just yet, because this whole ordeal they had just barely managed to drag themselves out of _was_ his fault-

 _Well_ , He thought, trying to remember what Mei-Ling said. _It wasn’t_ exactly _your fault, but still._

He could just wait for Hal to bring up the more difficult, emotional stuff on his own time.

“We’re going to take things a little easier. Space out missions more, or something. For sure you’re never coming on one with me again.” Dave said matter-of-factly. He heard the muted _thump_ of Hal dropping a few folded blankets he found on the floor.

“Yeah,” Hal replied, clapping the dust from his hands. “You in particular should let me or Mei know if you feel like something is too risky.”

Dave hummed in vague discontent. He hated feeling like he was being a coward about things.

“I’m being serious.” Hal said, tone light, as he stepped over the blankets to his partner. Dave startled and turned when he felt arms wrap around him. Hal was smiling widely. “Please?”

Dave sighed and returned the hug, praying that Hal wouldn’t be able to hear how hard his heart was beating, but he probably could anyway.

“Sure.”

“You mean a lot to me, you know that right? You might be a moody asshole, but…” Hal hugged him a bit tighter and actually nuzzled his face into Dave’s chest. “I still like you a lot. And I missed you, too.” he hummed.

_Oh._

Dave felt his heart nearly stop and cursed so loudly in his head that he was afraid it would come out of his mouth. All he could do on the outside was snort and lean his cheek on top of his partner’s black curls.

“I like you too, you awkward crybaby.”

Hal picked up his head, eyes sparkling. “You're blushing.”

Dave irately swatted the back of his partner’s head. “You also never _shut up_ ,” he grumbled.

Hal laughed softly, running his hands up and down Dave's back and that definitely wasn’t ambiguous, it couldn’t be. Either that or they were both getting so caught up in the fact that their relationship was starting to be whole again that they don't really know what to do with all that happiness. Maybe both.

The sudden urge to kiss Hal hit him with the force of a train and he wrestled with his thoughts on whether that would be appropriate. Just what _were_ they? It was getting harder and harder to tell. Fuck.

He saw Hal turn his head slightly and glance up at him and he could tell that he was _considering it_ , he was _thinking about it,_ Dave was practically half a second from reaching over to tilt his chin up, but Hal chickened out and buried his head into his shoulder, blushing to the roots of his hair. Dave scoffed and received an embarrassed slap to his back in response.

Oh well. There will be more opportunities later. They both had way more important stuff to think about right now, anyway.

That night he was woken from sleep when he heard his phone vibrate. He felt for it on his dresser and flipped it open, squinting at the bright screen as he tried to read.

 

\--Otacon--

(1/2) I'm happy that you gave me

the space I needed. Thank you.

I know I was distant especially

in a time when you needed

support too, and I'm sorry. We

will talk

**Received 01:18, Fri Nov 2 06**

 

\--Otacon--

(2/2) more about the heavier stuff

tomorrow/today, ok?

**Received 01:18, Fri Nov 2 06**

 

Dave pursed his lips as his sleep-addled brain absorbed those words. He hit _Reply_ and began typing.

 

\--Compose Message--

wht we went thru isnt a small

thing. still wanna stick w a

basketcase like me?

**[Send]**

 

He sent it and found himself dozing off as he waited for an answer.

 

\--Otacon--

You can't get rid of me that easily.

**Received 01:20, Fri Nov 2 06**

 

He felt a smile grow on his face and he quickly typed

 

\--Compose Message--

i dont mind ;)

**[Send]**

 

and hit send.

 

\--Otacon--

I’m here for you, always.

**Received 01:21, Fri Nov 2 06**

 

\--Compose Message--

me too

**[Send]**

 

Dave could hardly go back to sleep. He simply laid in his bed with his hands over his face as he came to terms with the fact that he was deeply, _deeply_ in love.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1: Philanthropy takes a road trip and discusses pressing matters.
> 
> Part 2: Philanthropy pitches to the United Nations and gets drunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a two-parter! It also was super fun to write. I promise you it is worth the 3-week wait. <3
> 
> This chapter also begins to approach the topic of Hal's past sexual trauma, not in any sort of explicit detail (not yet.), but it's there.
> 
> Edit: ALSO the intro scene of part 1 is based off this lovely art by tumblr user Zillymee: http://zillymee.tumblr.com/post/155991431421/snotweek-3-thaw-more-like-road-trip-part-2-the

~~~~~~

Part 1

~~~~~~

 

They had packed up and were just starting the drive to a few states over. It hadn’t started snowing yet, but the brisk November chill was hanging in the air and had already stripped all the green from the landscape of rural Massachusetts.

Hal was sitting in the passenger seat and looking through some files on his laptop and Dave was leaning against the car, taking a smoke break while they waited for the gas tank to fill up.

He looked up when Dave popped his head into the window and held up something.  “Look what I found,” He said. “The last straggler.” It was a single pink flower. Hal blinked at it and glanced around their desolate surroundings, not seeing any other greenery.

“You picked it, though. It's not exactly straggling anymore.” He observed.

“With an outside environment like this, picking it was a mercy kill.”

Hal took the flower from him and looked at it. It was small but pretty, and showed no signs of ill health from the cold at all. It was as if it was defiantly surviving, making a statement that its beauty can still flourish even in a harsh environment.

He wondered why that metaphor seemed familiar.

Hal reached forward, placed the flower behind Dave’s ear, and laughed when the soldier pulled a face and took it out, laying it on the dashboard instead.

“Not my style.” Dave said, walking out of view to put back the gas pump.

 

They had continued driving for quite some time before Hal finally said what had probably been bouncing around in both their minds that entire day.

“Dave… so, about what I texted you yesterday.”

Dave thinned his lips. “Yeah, we uh, should talk about that.”

“You had mentioned that you’d had another lapse before this one, years before.”

“You want to know about _that_ one, huh? Alright. It’s kind of a long story.”

He tapped nervously at the steering wheel, collecting his thoughts before speaking.

“Let me set this up first. So, after Zanzibar Land in ‘99, I had enough money left over from my CIA checks and the mercenary work I did to travel around some. I went over to Germany simply because I’d never been, and hung out there over the New Year and for a couple months afterwards. I had a great time, but my symptoms were also worsening. I couldn’t exactly see anyone about it, so I just tried to find some sort of outlet for all that stress.

I joined an underground boxing club that this bar would host weekly, and I loved it. I won something like five consecutive matches and people went crazy, started coming over from other cities to challenge me. The announcer gave me a ring name after my third win _\- Der_ _Verstümmler,_ or The Mutilator, and it stuck.”

Despite the serious topic, Hal couldn’t suppress a smile. “The _Mutilator_?”

Dave’s lip twitched and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know it’s lame. It sounds a lot better in German.”

“Anyway,” He went on. “My last match was against this guy who was way out of my weight class. I was nervous about it and I should have backed out. The match starts and I'm holding my own okay, but then this guy sidesteps the rules, gets me in a hold and starts choking me. He doesn’t let up.”

Dave sighed. “I panicked, experienced a rush of flashbacks in like two seconds, and snapped.”

He stopped for a few seconds and stared hard at the road.

“...What happened?” Hal asked, already feeling like he knew what the answer was going to be.

“I killed him.”

The words hung in the air for a while before Dave took a breath and continued.

“A friend told me they had to pull me off of him because I apparently wasn't hearing the bell, and when I started to attack the referees they thought I was on drugs and threw me out. I woke up the second I hit the floor at the top of the stairs, and they were calling for EMTs and shit. I got scared and left. The following day, I heard he died of a brain hemorrhage, his family was looking for me, so I booked a flight back to the States.

That was the first and _only_ time I've ever killed anyone outside of a contract or a job. It was a complete accident. It was part of the reason why I holed myself up in Alaska, I figured I was just too fucked up to interact regularly with people anymore.”

Hal looked out the window as he took time to digest the story. He heard Dave sigh and turned to see him sink into the seat a little bit, as if exhausted from just recounting the memory. Hal reached over to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. He was surprised when Dave tilted his head sideways and rested his cheek on it for a few brief moments before moving back.

“Why did you stay?” Dave asked quietly. “After what I nearly did to you? Anybody else would have quit on the spot and had me institutionalized.” He thumbed at the steering wheel. “I still feel weird about it, like you forgave me too quickly. Like you’re pretending it's not a big deal when it is.”

Hal returned his hand to himself. “...Don’t get me wrong, David. Just because I'm trying to get over it doesn't mean it wasn't a big deal. I had nightmares for days, and didn’t sleep well for weeks. If you were anybody else, I would have left immediately.”

He noticed the way Dave slowly tensed throughout his answer.

“But you aren’t the only one who has to live with that kind of guilt on your shoulders.” Hal said. “I’m also responsible for the death and trauma of innocent people.”

He paused for a while, stewing in his lie by omission. Dave probably thought he meant everyone involved in the Shadow Moses incident, and while that was true, the _real_ truth was much darker, much more personal, but Hal couldn’t make himself say it. _It’s a bad time, it’s too hard to talk about, it’s-_

“It’s a horrible, disgusting feeling. It haunts me.” Hal said instead, drawing his knees up to himself and looking out the window.

_Coward._

Hal clenched his jaw and forced his brain to return to the topic at hand, choosing his next words carefully.

“I forgave you because I’ve spent almost half my life wishing that someone would see me as a person outside of the accidents I’ve caused. You’ve given me that reassurance, and I want to be able to reciprocate that because I know you’ve always needed it too.”

Hal glanced at his partner. “I know you very well, and I can tell you that sure, you’re a violent person, and that’s pretty scary. But you never abuse people, or take advantage of them, or force them into doing what you want.”

He inhaled before continuing, hiding his face in his knees. “I’ve had far too many relationships with other people like that. But you’re different. You treat me like I’m your equal or even more, like I’m precious to you, and that...” He drew tighter into himself, voice wavering. “Is something I’ve needed so badly. For way, _way_ too long.

You're just such an important part of my life and you deserve so much in return, how could I even think about letting you go?” That last sentence was so quiet that among the din of the car engine, he wasn’t sure if it was audible. Hal stayed like that for a few seconds, blinking back tears.

He startled when a warm hand settled on the back of his neck. He looked up and there wasn’t much to see; Dave was looking at the road with the same composed expression he usually wore, remaining silent as he frequently did. Hal sighed and turned forward again and as he did so, a thumb and two fingers started to massage gently along the nape of his neck. It was a simple gesture, but it told Hal many things that words couldn't. His eyes slipped shut as he allowed his thoughts to drift.

He dozed off and wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Dave spoke. It could have been five minutes, it could have been twenty. They were the only two words spoken for the remaining hour of their trip.

“Thank you.”  
  


Later, they were unpacking their things- Hal was going through the contents of a box on the living room floor when he felt a single tap on his shoulder. He turned and looked up at his partner, who then crouched to be eye-level.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” Dave asked.

Hal looked at him for a long moment, not liking being put on the spot.

“Yes,” He said hesitantly, turning back to the box.

“Just checking.” Dave said as he stood, and Hal felt something get placed behind his ear as the soldier passed by to get the last remaining box from the car.

He reached and pulled out that same little pink flower. He sat and looked at it, realizing now what it reminded him of.

It reminded him of a question he had timidly asked Dave almost two years ago, overlooking a dead elevator shaft with the frightening thump of helicopter blades sounding just beyond the roof above their heads.

It also reminded him of Dave’s answer.

The flower stayed in his top drawer.  
  
  


~~~~~~

Part 2

~~~~~~

 

Hal checked his watch for what felt like the fifth time that day and rapped his knuckles against his friend’s bedroom door. ”David, are you ready? We need to leave in ten.”

The door opened mid-knock and Dave appeared, fully dressed minus jacket and tie. Hal gave him a once-over and frowned.

“You didn't shave.” He said flatly.

Dave blinked and innocently rubbed at his four-day old stubble. “Did I need to?”

“I thought you would-...” Hal decided not to be a nag and hand-waved it away. “Nevermind. At least you did your hair.” Dave had indeed pushed his hair back out of his face and loosely secured it with a little gel. It looked nice, which was a plus.

Amid its member’s newfound fame thanks to Nastasha’s book, Philanthropy had made the strategic and rather difficult decision to come public to the United Nations for better funding and resources, becuase prospects for them continuing to function independently were beginning to look grim - it was simply too big a job for them to fund and supply themselves. Hal and Dave were currently residing in a tiny apartment in Queens, just a hop away from the UN headquarters in Manhattan.

They would have to give a full formal presentation, revealing their identities and providing proof that they were basically the only reason why the US hadn't turned itself or anyone else into a nuclear wasteland over the past two years. Understandably, the UN was very concerned about the existence of Metal Gear. Their ideology aligned enough with Philanthropy’s for Hal to be fairly confident they could get on their good side.

They just had to… well, lie a tiny bit about their body count.

They had been anxiously preparing this presentation for a month, and the day had finally come.

“I wouldn't have known to shave, I've never done this shit before.” Dave said, following him to their living room where he grabbed his tie from where it lay on their ironing board.

Like any self-respecting NGO, they (mostly Hal) knew that business attire was the best option. They had gone to buy suits a week prior, Hal had gone with a grey suit with a light blue shirt and tie he already owned. Dave, always one to minimize his visibility, had gone with a black suit and tie with a dark grey shirt.

“Hey.” Hal looked up from his phone to see Dave standing there, staring at his tie. The soldier took a breath, then hesitated. “...Canyoudoitupforme?” He muttered, words blending together so much that Hal had trouble discerning them.

Hal gaped at him, then held in laughter. “You don’t know how to do a tie? Really?”

Dave squared his shoulders. “Look, there are plenty of things _you_ never learned how to do.”

“Oh, I know, I’m just surprised. I guess you’re really out of your element here.” Dave had nothing in response but a vague grumble, and Hal could hardly keep the smile off his face at his partner’s obvious embarrassment.

“Come on, lighten up.” Hal said, as he stepped up to him and looped the tie around his collar, secretly appreciating how close they were standing to each other. Dave’s cologne smelled really nice. He finished tying the tie and pulled the knot to fit, flipping the collar back down. He looked back up at his partner and though he was done, neither of them made a move to step away. Hal felt his heart very slowly begin to rise into his throat as the silence stretched.

“I like it when you dress up. We should go to events like this more often.” Dave said, eyes drifting down to his lips.

Hal scoffed and gently pushed back on his shoulders, turning away to hide his red face. “Stop that,” He snapped, with no real anger in his tone.

“Stop what?” He could easily hear the smile in Dave’s words.

“You know what.” he huffed, sitting down on the couch to put on his shoes. “I'm already nervous about this presentation and you aren’t helping.”

Dave affectionately flicked him on the arm as he walked past to get his jacket and put it on. “It is kinda nerve wracking, isn’t it?” He mused, straightening out the lapels. “I’m not much a fan of the fact that half the UN are gonna get a face to my name, either.”

“They’re not going to sell you out, if that’s what you’re worried about. Nobody else in the country has as much history or skill in dealing with these walking death machines as we do.”

Dave shrugged. “True, they’re practically bending over backwards to accommodate us; no press coverage allowed, no photo ID required for me, _and_ we’ve got a whopping fifteen minutes to pitch. Doesn't change the nerves much, though.” He buttoned the coat, then settled into a fighter’s stance and aimed jabs at an imaginary opponent, then dropped to a crouch to attempt a sweep kick. ”Fuck suits, this is so restricting.” He complained, standing up and rolling his shoulders.

However much he didn't like it, he still looked pretty good in one.

“I doubt you’re going to have to do any of that.” Hal checked his watch, then sighed. “Four o'clock, we should go.” He grabbed his backpack from the chair and they headed out the door and hailed a taxi to Manhattan.

They were too nervous to make any conversation the entire way there. After so long remaining anonymous, suddenly coming to the public, however controlled, felt like suicide. But this was too big of an opportunity to waste.

 

The UN headquarters was imposing. A tall, narrow edifice of almost pure reflective glass stood in between columns with flags of all the member countries attached, swaying in the breeze. The lobby had a ceiling high enough to reach up to the fourth story, with white walls and floors and blue-accented furniture and carpeting. They checked in and went through security, where they, especially Dave, were thoroughly patted down and searched.

Soon they were standing in front of the conference room door, equipped with earset mics and clickers.

Hal put a hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”

“Let’s go.”

They walked into a room that was a lot bigger than they were expecting, with a lot more people than they were expecting. It was somewhat lecture hall styled, with multiple long rows of chairs and desks all arranged in semi-circles focusing on the front of the room, which had a small stage and projector screen. They glanced around in awe, noting that almost all the seats were filled. The low din of conversation permeated the gold and beige room, echoing off the walls and making it seem even more huge.

Hal heard his codec line open and an angry snarl drifted into his thoughts. “ _Bullshit, we were told we would be speaking to sixteen execs. This is practically the entire building! What’s going on?!”_

 _“I guess word got around. Do you think any of these are the press?”_ He cautiously thought back.

_“I hope not, but with this many, who knows? And I bet you every single one of them has read Nastasha's book.”_

They took their seats behind the center floor and waited for the conference to begin. The entire meeting was dedicated to their pitch and the discussion about it afterwards, which they were not allowed to attend. They would be notified of the decision after everything was over.

Hal nervously fidgeted with his earset as they waited to be called up. Dave was slouched back with his arms crossed, staring holes into the wall. Eventually they were called, and Hal took a breath and stood to walk down to the center floor with Dave right behind him.

“ _Brace yourself._ ” he heard in his head, before his codec line closed.

They both stood side-by-side and turned to face the room, briefly scanning their eyes over all the faces waiting for them to speak. Hal nodded to Dave, who stepped forward and cleared his throat.

“Before we begin, I'd like to address something.” he began, the earset mic amplifying his words. “Due to personal safety concerns, we have asked that there be absolutely no photography or video recording of any kind during this conference. The security staff have been pretty through with their searches, so we _hope_ ,” he paused, eyes slowly scanning the audience again. “That there will be no problems.” He finished, voice expertly harboring just the slightest edge of a threat. A few people shifted in their seats. He stepped back.

“Good afternoon.” Hal said. He sounded a lot calmer than he felt. “My name is Dr. Hal Emmerich. I am a mechanical engineer, stealth tactician, and security hacker. I was the project lead in the development and completion of a highly dangerous nuclear weapon known as Metal Gear REX. That work was done against my will as a hostage held on Shadow Moses Island, Alaska, from 2004 to 2005.”

There were several whispers as he paused. Dave clasped his hands behind his back and stood up straight.

“My name is David. I do not have a last name. I am a former Special Forces soldier and infiltrations expert.” He began to pace slowly. “In 2005, I was sent alone by the D.O.D. to Shadow Moses Island to rescue hostages. I also had to destroy the Metal Gear that Dr. Emmerich was forced to create before it could launch a nuke, and with his help, I was successful.” He stopped pacing and faced the room. “The codename that I used during this operation was Solid Snake.”

The whispers turned into shocked mutters with several people leaning into each other to talk, eyes drifting back and forth between the two Philanthropists.

“Since that day,” Dave said, raising his voice slightly so that the noise died down faster. “Dr. Emmerich and I have banded together under a firm anti-nuke, anti-war stance and made it our mission to ensure that nobody else can create or use these weapons.”

“Using a combination of surveillance and sabotage, we have halted production on no less than fifteen unique models of Metal Gear, three of which were being covertly funded by the US Government.” Hal looked around the room. “Allow me to be blunt. If it weren't for us, the headlines of your newspapers would look very different right about now.”

There were more concerned murmurings. The word “fifteen” could be heard a few times, spoken fearfully, as if it was a tough metric to swallow.

“We are here to request recognition, sponsorship, and access to UN resources in order to continue doing our jobs the best we can. We have details and proof of our actions and methodology so that you can make an informed decision.” Dave added.

Attentive silence immediately fell. Hal and Dave shared a glance before Hal clicked his remote and the projector behind them lit up.

 

The entire conference went off without a hitch. They were both calm and their words flowed smoothly, and had the rapt attention of the audience the entire way through, but they couldn't relax just yet. They both exited and waited for the decision in a small hallway with cushioned benches. Hal was briskly typing on his laptop, messaging Mei-Ling about what was happening. She was here with them, too, but couldn’t involve herself publicly because of her government job, so she was waiting in a cafe a few minutes away.

“This wait is killing me. I wish I could know what they're saying.” Hal muttered, putting his chin in his hand.

Dave was fidgeting with his carton of cigarettes. “Can’t you just… hack one of the mics?”

Hal shook his head. “No,” he said aloud, before opening a codec line. _“Don’t talk about that too much, we’re probably being monitored. I’m sure someone in there has a phone I could listen through, but I don’t want to risk it.”_

_“Right.”_

Another twenty minutes passed and the meeting finally ended. A woman opened the door and led them back down the hallway back into the conference room, where they were told their answer. The final decision, after “detailed discussion and careful weighing of alternatives”, was yes!

They were so excited and relieved that it took a lot of effort for them to remain professional as they left back into the lobby, only once were they outside did Dave slump onto a bench overwhelmed, putting his head in his hands, while Hal practically jumped up and down beside him.

This sponsorship pretty much saved the future of their organization, and in a weird, indirect way, continued to secure their future with each other. All their work had paid off, _finally_ , after a scary period of tight funds and stagnation, they could put all that behind them and take a giant step towards achieving their goal.

They briskly walked over to the cafe that Mei was staying in while Hal chattered to her on the phone, telling her the news. She ran outside when they arrived and hugged both of them, laughing in relief.

They went out to dinner to celebrate. They got some funny looks, what with the contrast between Dave and Hal’s suits compared to Mei’s hoodie and jeans, but it wasn’t a problem. They sat in a booth and waited for food to arrive as Dave and Hal recounted what happened.

 

...“There were _so many_ god damned people there, Mei. I’m convinced most of them were press goons. We were told we would be talking to just the sixteen people in the security council, but there must have been almost a hundred. We can’t even trust our own sponsor, apparently.” Dave said, wriggling a hand through his hair to loosen some of it from the gel’s hold.

Hal was scrolling through his phone. “I’m keeping an eye on any new articles published with certain keywords. We can always just erase them as they pop up.”

“Do either of you think you will have any problems with being in public?” Mei asked.

“Probably not, but I’m thinking we should move to another state sooner rather than later, just in case.”

Mei nodded and leaned on a hand. “Did security give you any  trouble? I’ve only really ever been inside the UN building once, and that was to take a tour. We had to drop off a bunch of stuff at the door.”

Hal spoke up. “Security was very tight. They searched both of us. And _this_ guy-” he pointedly rapped his knuckles into Dave’s arm, who snickered. “-This _mature adult_ , looked between me and the woman who was patting him down and waggled his stupid eyebrows when he thought she wasn’t looking. I was just waiting in horror for him to make a pass at her and get us kicked out.”

Mei clapped her hands to her mouth to stifle a giggle. “David, no!” she cried. “You can't do that!”

Dave broke into laughter. “I was just kidding, do you really think I would?!”

“ _Yes!_ ” Both Hal and Mei said in unison.

“My own friends have no faith in me. Shame.” Dave pretended to pout and leaned back to morosely sip his beer.

“For good reason.” Hal muttered.

  


Mei had to leave after they had dinner because it was a weekday and she had to work early in the morning. They bid her goodbye and sat at the bar.

“Hey.” Dave said, inclining his head towards the pool table. “Let’s go. Loser takes a shot and buys the winner a drink.”

Hal snorted. “We share a bank account, David.” but he followed him to the table anyway.

“Whatever. It’s the gesture that matters.” The soldier said, taking a cue stick and chalking it, while Hal collected the balls from the pockets and arranged them within the triangle.

The game was relaxed at first, they exchanged their usual sarcasm but got very serious towards the end. Hal lost but just barely, turns out that Dave calculated his angles and trajectories just as carefully as he did. He begrudgingly bought his partner a gin-and-tonic, and Dave ordered a single shot and slid it over to him, grinning. Hal smiled and they clinked glasses.

 

They played a second game, Hal had some difficulty concentrating but he scraped a win, earning himself a very tasty pina colada. Dave threw back a shot of whiskey and they left and took a long walk, talking and laughing. Dave saw another bar and tugged him excitedly into it, and after getting them beers, tugged him even more excitedly towards a foosball table, saying “Holy shit, We _have_ to.”

It resulted in several intense but fun matches, most of which Hal lost because obviously his reflexes couldn’t keep up. They both took one more shot. Hal knew he was a lightweight so after four drinks he was beyond buzzed and now in drunk territory, to the point of starting to have trouble balancing, but to his surprise it felt _good_. While normally he disliked drinking because not being able to think made him feel anxious, Dave’s presence was very comforting and ensured him that he was safe.

Also, when would they ever be able to do this again? Judging by the amount of work they had ahead of them, not for a while.

They ate a small plate of nachos and walked back to the financial district. By now it was night and the wind was getting colder. Neither of them had overcoats but Dave didn't seem to mind. Hal leaned heavily on his partner the whole way and smiled at how Dave had a warm arm wrapped around his waist.

They got a taxi and stepped into it, and the chilly wind was sealed away. Hal relaxed against the comfortable seat and stared out the window at the passing lights of traffic, not really thinking about much, because all the alcohol had placed him firmly in a very narrow space in the present moment. He decided to let it. It did suck feeling dizzy, though.

He felt a tap against the back of his hand and turned to look at it. Dave was hovering his hand over his own and had placed a single finger on his knuckle. He glanced up questioningly and Dave gave him an unreadable look. Hal wondered if he was reading the gesture correctly and tentatively turned it to face up. He was given his answer when Dave smiled almost imperceptibly and settled their palms together, twining his fingers between his own. Hal couldn't keep the much larger smile off his face and turned back to look out the window.

They, again, didn't talk the whole ride back to Queens. Though this time it was for a very different reason.

 

There was a noticeable spring in Dave’s step as Hal followed him up the two flights to their apartment, making him lithely take some stairs two at a time.

“Hey, can I try something?” Dave called behind his shoulder while he unlocked the door.

Hal arrived behind him a few seconds later. “Sure, what-”

He couldn't finish his sentence because he was kissed as he was pulled inside.

Hal stumbled forward and held on tightly to his shoulders to steady himself. The cogs in his head struggled to turn as he processed what was happening. Dave released him and touched their foreheads together, and Hal’s brain caught up with him as he saw a big grin spread across his friend's face. They both snickered then laughed, too excited to bother keeping any kind of serious front.

Dave kissed him again, his lips were warm and rough and he smelled like cologne and whiskey and smoke and everything was so familiar, so _good_ , except never before this intimate and Hal found this sudden change addicting. Butterflies erupted in his stomach as Dave ran his fingers down his back, making his breaths shaky. They broke apart, lips barely touching.

“You have no idea,” Dave murmured against him. “How long I've been wanting to do that.”

“I think I might have.” Hal whispered, pulling Dave to him by his collar.

He was walked backwards into the room as they continued until Dave had him up against the wall and the press of lips turned into more of a push, rougher and more possessive. Hal angled his head and licked across Dave's lip and his partner responded immediately, sliding his tongue into his mouth and rolling it across his own. Dave reached up to cup his face, tangling his fingers in Hal’s hair. His palms pressed over his ears, shutting away all noise and leaving him with only the low roar of his own blood. Hal fisted his hands in Dave's shirt and breathed deeply, almost overwhelmed by all the sensation at once.

They separated again. The palms lifted from his ears and the outside world was returned, making him dizzy. Or maybe that was the alcohol. It was definitely the alcohol.

Dave leaned in and brushed their cheeks together. “Should I keep going?” he asked, breath tickling Hal’s ear.

Hal was nodding before he found his voice. “Yes, please.” he said breathlessly.

He felt Dave’s cheek pull back in a leer. “l could get used to hearing that.”

There was a lusty edge to his words that had Hal blushing profusely. “I didn't mean it like _that_ , you weirdo.” he hissed.

Dave only hummed in response and touched a thumb beneath Hal’s chin to tilt his head back. Hal loosened his own tie to tug his collar down and gave a shuddering inhale as a hot tongue traced down the path of his carotid artery before lips paid very thorough attention to the spot directly above his pulse. Shocks ran through him at the feeling and he found himself laughing again.

“ _Shit_ , hahahah... This is really happening, isn't it? _”_ Hal got his answer in a sting as teeth nipped at him. He arched into his partner, then tested the waters and ground into him a bit, and was rewarded with a deep purr against his neck which sent his hair standing on end.

“Jeez, calm down,” Hal mumbled, trying to keep his voice steady.

Dave smiled. “Can’t. You're too cute.” he sighed. Hal felt hands grip at his waist to press their hips together before he was backed harder into the wall. “Makin’ it hard to think.”

Hal smiled back and wound his arms around his shoulders. “Then don't.”

Dave started up a slow but firm rhythm as he continued to love on Hal’s neck, the combination of pressure against his dick and lips closing around his pulse made it hard to do anything but shudder and drag his nails along Dave's back, whispering his approval. It was amazing. He couldn't believe this was happening. All he wanted was _more_.

His thoughts were cut short when the room swayed, and he tried to grasp onto his partner in an attempt to remain steady. Nervousness prickled through his system as it sunk in just how drunk he was and how little control he had over himself, making his stomach clench and his mouth fill with saliva. His eyes snapped open then as he realized _that wasn’t just nerves-_

“Dave. _Dave_. Can you let me go? I’m-...!” He panted, trying frantically to shove his partner away. Dave paused and moved back just enough for Hal to wiggle out from under him and nearly fall as he stumbled to the bathroom to throw up.

He barely made it in time.

Hal collapsed to the ground after flushing the toilet, catching his breath and squinting at the ceiling as he watched the room spin. “God damn it.” He muttered, rubbing at his eyes.

“Guess you had way too much, huh?” came Dave’s voice as he stepped into the doorway and kneeled into focus beside him.

Hal weakly nodded. “I don’t have your iron liver.” A hand gently removed his glasses and brushed his hair out of his eyes.

“Sorry about that, I shouldn’t have expected for you to keep up with me. Here-” Dave helped him up and kept him steady as he used some mouthwash and brushed his teeth.

“I think I just need to lay down.” Hal said, once he finished. Dave agreed and wrapped an arm around his waist, and they both leaned on each other as they went to Hal's room.

They didn't bother turning on the light. Hal dimly heard the door close as he lay dazed on his bed, trying to breathe steady to shake the disorientation. A weight dipped the mattress next to him and through the darkness he could make out a Dave-shaped shadow sitting on the edge of the bed. The room spun again and Hal squeezed his eyes shut, unable to look at anything anymore.

Warm fingers brushed comfortingly up his arm and then moved to touch at the base of his throat, undoing his tie and shirt buttons.

“What'reyou doing?” Hal asked, grimacing at how his words were running together.

“You should probably get out of this, it'll be more comfortable.”

“Mmm.” He didn't object and let his partner dote because he couldn't really think of anything. Even the events of the last ten minutes which should have had him screaming into the heavens that it _finally happened_ felt like a blurry dream, unreal. Maybe that didn't actually happen and he had just come home and laid in bed. Fuck.

He sleepily lifted his arms out of the sleeves and the shirt was removed from under him. Dave's fingers, then palms, returned to his sides and brushed upwards. It was when nails playfully scratched against his ribcage that multiple thoughts hit him at once - one, that holy shit, the past ten minutes _did_ actually happen, and two, a sudden and unwanted bolt of discomfort because for an instant, his ethanol-soaked brain didn't interpret those nails as Dave’s.

They could have been _her’s_.

Hal snapped his hands up and gripped at Dave's wrists, heart hammering in his chest. Dave paused and leaned towards him but the fact that it was too dark to see didn't help beat back the unwanted anxiety.

“Are you still nauseous?” Dave asked. Hal shook his head in response and slid his hands up to cup Dave’s face, thumbs brushing along his eyebrows, the bridge of his nose. He needed to just keep reminding himself that who this person is is miles away from _her_ and he would be okay. He couldn't let her ruin this for him. He tugged down Dave's face towards his own.

Hal tried to relax again as they kissed (thank god he brushed his teeth), tracing Dave’s cheekbones and jaw with his fingers, brushing his pinky against the small raised scar just in front of his left ear, all parts of him that couldn't have been mistaken for anybody else. Dave pulled back and Hal unconsciously leaned up to follow him but was pressed back into the bed by his shoulders. Dave tilted his head down and placed a chaste kiss on his collarbone, then a more intense one to his chest. Hal took a nervous breath and combed his hands into his partner’s hair, separating the last of the strands still held by gel.

Dave scratched his nails down his sides again as his lips drifted lower, and Hal grit his teeth in frustration as more anxiety flooded his system, more than he could properly ignore. He was definitely now starting to have second thoughts, and he wished so hard he wasn’t.

He jumped as stubble dragged against his stomach and dug his nails into his partner's scalp to try and stop him. Dave shivered and groaned and _god, he wanted to hear so much more of that,_ but the louder, more irrational part of his brain was sounding alarm bells that _he’s too much like Julie, his sexual confidence is just like Julie’s, he pushed you to drink to get you complacent just like Julie did-_

“Pull my hair more,” Came a rough demand against his skin, before a tongue dipped into his navel and hands started to undo his belt. Hal couldn’t shut out his fears anymore and gave up, tapping insistently against Dave's head to get his attention, mouth forming his name but voice not sounding amid the increasing constriction of panic.

Dave immediately stopped and raised his head, and near-silence stretched between them for a few seconds, only broken by both their ragged breathing.

“What's wrong?” He asked, voice so full of pure, genuine concern that it struck Hal that absolutely none of this could have been malicious, Dave had no _plan_ , he really was just acting in the heat of the moment. How could Hal ever begin to explain exactly what was wrong, it was so fucking _complicated-_

“I…” Hal’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I'm way too drunk.” It was the technical truth, better than nothing.

Dave let out a breath he had apparently been holding. “You think so?”

Hal swallowed and nodded. His throat was so tight it hurt.

Dave pushed himself back into a sitting position. “Wow, of course you are. You were _sick_.” He tensed and scrubbed at his hair with a hand, clearly in distress. “Fuck, I wasn't really thinking about that. I'm sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Hal said quietly, reaching out to Dave’s arm, and the soldier took his hand and squeezed it.

Hal sighed and let his head drop back against the pillow, willing himself to calm down. Fuck everything, he should have known that this issue would come up, but he had been deliberately not thinking about it just in case Dave’s flirting was for fun and nothing serious. But now he knew it was very serious, and now there was _pressure_.

It wasn't fair. This was all her fault. He couldn't un-associate sex from her, why did he ever think he could? Damn it. This was going to be such a huge problem.

“You should get some sleep.” Dave made to stand, and Hal frowned and gripped his hand tighter, pulling him back down, kissing him on the cheek.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured.

“You don't need to be sorry, Hal. It wouldn’t have been a good idea, anyway. I’ll get you some water and you should just sleep this off.” Further silence told him that Dave had left the room.

Hal resignedly rolled over and pressed his face into a cool spot on the pillow, digging his toes into the heels of the opposite shoe to remove them. He wished he wasn’t so upset. He had more or less just gotten a _love confession_ for crying out loud, and besides, Dave would probably understand his predicament because he always did, but right now the feelings were a little too raw, made all the more intense by the drinks. A whole lot had happened in the past half-hour, there were way too many complicated unknowns for his brain to deal with, so all further thinking was best left for tomorrow.

He was half-awake when he heard a single knock on his door and a few seconds later the clack of a plastic cup being placed on his side table. A hand brushed back and forth on his arm for a few seconds. He groggily thought about saying something but the hand lifted before he could, and he descended back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

Hal woke up, and the first thing he noticed was that it felt like he had swallowed a bucketful of sand. He opened his eyes and grimaced at how dry they were, and upon sitting up his head pounded so suddenly that he nearly retched. He noticed the glass of water and gratefully dipped a finger in to moisten his eyes before chugging it. Feeling a little better, he took stock of his surroundings. There was a piece of notebook paper folded on his dresser. He opened it up to read, recognizing Dave’s all-caps hand: ((A/N: mobile users, scroll left-to-right to view))  


 

Hal sat there, scanning over the letter three, four times, still not really believing that yesterday was real. To his relief he found himself focusing a lot more on the first paragraph than the second one, because that was honestly the most important part. There it was, plain as day, phrased with a simple directness that was long overdue. He blew out a sigh and leaned back into the bed, momentarily having trouble noticing his headache through the multiple colonies of butterflies going crazy in his stomach.

He got into comfortable clothes, took some painkillers, and entered the kitchen. Dave was standing at the counter, measuring sugar into a mixing bowl. He glanced at Hal when he came in.

“Morning,” he said. “How’d you sleep?”

“I think I was dead.” Hal answered, pouring himself another glass of water.

“I'm guessing you're hungover.”

“That’s putting it lightly, but I’m waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in.”

They both paused for a bit, and Dave turned to lean against the stove.

“So,” he began, suddenly appearing very interested in the baseboards. “Did you read the letter?”

Hal wet his lips and felt a blush spread across his face. “I did. And I want to let you know,” he took a breath. “That your feelings are mutual.” This was so silly. They were both grown men.

“That’s good...” Dave nervously drummed his fingers on the edge of the oven. (Hal recognized it as the opening bars of _When The Levee Breaks_. Funny, he wouldn’t have been able to before they started living together.) “But before we think about all that, I want to thank you for speaking up and stopping me. I was just running on autopilot and not considering your position, and that was real shitty, especially since you were so drunk that you might not have been able to…assert yourself, you know?” He gripped at the counter but met Hal’s eyes.

A cold feeling ran across Hal’s skin and he crossed his arms, swallowing down a tiny knot in his throat. “I know, and it’s okay, just… It would be better for me if this didn’t all happen at once.”

“Of course.”

Hal gathered all his courage to force the next words out of his mouth. “And It wasn't just because I was drunk. I mean, it was a little because of that, but I also have... _issues_ with sex. I-I've had some bad experiences, and I haven’t quite gotten over them.”

Dave leaned forward, face dark in concern. “What kind of “bad” do you mean?”

Hal fidgeted, heart pounding, not wanting to say any more. He was a little trapped because he knew his clear discomfort would say a lot about exactly what kind of “bad” he meant. But Dave sighed and leaned back against the counter, not pushing the issue.

“You don’t want to talk about it.” he said flatly.

“Not right now. All I'm trying to say is that I’m not ready.”

A hand came forward and rested against Hal’s cheek. “I understand, but you know you’re gonna have to tell me soon.”

Hal leaned a bit into the hand. “I know.” he responded.

Dave leaned down, brushing their lips together. Hal couldn’t keep himself from smiling into the kiss, already feeling comforted. Everything else aside, he could get used to this. He could get very, _very_ used to it.

“Anyway,” Dave muttered against him after they broke apart. “Do you want pancakes?”

“I do want pancakes.” Hal agreed, moving next to him to get the eggs out of the fridge. He pressed their shoulders together as he did so.

 

They made a couple stacks, putting chocolate chips and blueberries in a few, and ate them while watching reruns of _M*A*S*H._ There was something real nice about the fact that they could now sit pressed together without either constantly worrying about it coming off the wrong way. They had been done with the food for a while when Hal reached over and muted the television.

“Hey,” He said, turning towards Dave and winding his arms around his neck. “Regardless of what happened last night, I still like you. A lot. I know I said I have issues, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to work through them.”

Dave hummed and leaned against him. “You’re being forward,” He said playfully. wrapping an arm around Hal’s waist, ignoring the engineer’s huff of annoyance. “So you’re insinuating that you would like to have sex at some point.”

Embarrassed, Hal hid his face in his shoulder. “Well, yeah, of- of _course_ , I just don’t know _when_...”

“And by ‘working through it’, you mean being _very clear_ to me about what makes you nervous so that we can avoid that at first and then gradually introduce it later.” 

“...Sure?”

“Work with me here, Hal.” Dave sighed, but his hand caressed Hal’s back in a way that showed he was kidding.

“ _Yes_ , jeez.”

“That’s better.” A kiss was placed to his temple. Hal rolled his eyes and reached for the remote. They both stayed there for the rest of the morning, contently floating in the warm emotions of new love and old TV.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Trust is intimacy, and intimacy is healing.” - Dean Ornish

**((A/N: TW for candid but not explicit (as in, no nitty-gritty details) discussion about sexual assault of a minor.))**

 

\--Compose Message--

Are you still awake? There’s light under

your door.

**[Send]**

 

\--Snake--

yep watchin csi

**Received 02:43, Mon Mar 12 07**

 

\--Compose Message--

Can I talk to you about something?

**[Send]**

 

\--Snake--

sure come in

**Received 02:44, Mon Mar 12 07**

 

Hal cracked open Dave’s door. The lights were off and he was sitting up in bed, watching a small cheap television perched on a stool across the room. He was wearing only boxer-briefs and was snacking out of a bag of pretzels.

“Hey,” Hal sighed, walking in and shutting the door behind him.

“Hey. Can’t sleep?”

“No.”

Dave shifted aside to make room for him. “Me either. Too much coffee.”

Hal crawled in beside him and laid on his stomach, reaching over to steal a pretzel. He felt a hand brush through his hair as he listened to the TV.

“What did you want to talk about?” Dave asked, after a few minutes.

Hal anxiously turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I need to gather the willpower first.” he muttered, lifting his glasses to rub at his eyes. He heard the dry click of the TV being shut off and the room was plunged into darkness.

“...What I’m about to tell you,” his voice felt loud in the new silence. “Is really fucked up.”

Dave’s silhouette stiffened in alarm and he took Hal’s shoulders, trying to pull him into a sitting position. “Hal, what happened? Did something go wrong? Do we need to move?” He asked urgently.

“No, no, we’re fine.” Hal brushed him off but remained sitting, leaning his back against the wall. “This is about… something that happened to me years ago. I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while.”

“Is this about what you said last week?”

“Yes.”

“I’m listening.” Dave turned to face him.

Hal scratched the back of his neck. “It’s a long story.”

“You’ve listened my long stories plenty.”

“Okay. Um…”

Hal folded his hands in his lap and glanced at them. The words came quiet but steady.

 

“My childhood wasn’t that great. I think I’ve made that obvious to you without being explicit about it. I never knew my mom, and my dad was a neglectful asshole. We were fairly well-off because of his work and everything, but that didn’t make living at home any easier.

I was a teenager when dad suddenly started being gone a lot more often, and I had my suspicions that he was dating someone, and I was right. I had just turned fifteen when out of the blue he remarried at the courthouse, and his wife’s name was Julie Danzinger.” Her name felt like decaying lead on his tongue. Foul-tasting and heavy.

“She moved in with us, and brought her daughter, Emma, who was around eight. I liked Emma a lot, we became close and having an actual sibling made me really happy.

Julie was nice too, she was smart and compassionate and talked to me a lot more than my Dad ever did. He was also always in a better mood whenever he was around her, and their relationship seemed solid. So for a couple of months, things looked up.

And then...” Hal fidgeted with the bedsheet and felt his heart begin to pound. “I discovered something about her.” A joyless, bitter smile grew on his face as he started to have to force the words out of his mouth. “Something that nobody else knew at the time, not even my dad.”

He looked at Dave who attentively held his gaze, apprehension creasing his brow.

“...What was it?”

“She was a pedophile.”

Through the sparse light he watched the color abruptly drain from Dave’s face. His eyes widened and his jaw worked for a second.

“Oh.” He breathed. “Oh, god, did she…?” He trailed off, digging a hand through his hair.

Hal nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s-...” Dave paused again, appearing unsure of what to do or say. He scooted over and pressed their shoulders together as he stared hard at the wall, keeping silent.

“There was this one evening in late summer,” Hal continued, taking an unsteady breath. “When Dad was working late and Emma was over at a friend’s for a sleepover. Julie and I were the only ones in the house, so she made dinner for us.” His voice began to shake. “And she gave me a lot - a _lot -_ of alcohol. She… tugged me over to my room... and made me have sex with her.”

He fisted the bedsheet in his hands. Dave wrapped an arm around him and drew them closer. Hal squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to force back tears. He managed, barely.

He kept talking.

“I was so drunk that I barely remembered any of it. We acted like it didn’t happen at first, but then later while she was driving me somewhere, she brought it up and said that it meant a lot to her that I trusted her that much. That it was _okay_ because we weren’t blood-related, and that she knew how lonely I was and she just wanted for me to feel loved, and-...” Dave’s grip on his arm was getting tighter. It began to hurt. “...And that it could be a continuing thing, as long as I didn’t tell anybody-”

He nearly jumped out of his skin as Dave inhaled sharply and slammed a fist onto the mattress, getting up to his feet. “-What the _fuck?_ Are you fucking _kidding me,_ she _told you that?!_ ” He snarled, starting to pace back and forth. “She’s a sick piece of _shit!_ ” He threw a palm at his dresser, producing a loud crack as it jostled a loose drawer.

“ _Dave_.”

Dave stiffened and glared at him in silence, chest heaving.

Hal shook his head. “It’s not worth it.”

“Yes, it is.” He said sternly. “Nothing she could say would justify what she did to you. _Ever_.”

Hal sat up straighter, meeting his eyes without apprehension. “You think I don’t know that? I’ve had a lot of time to realize what happened. But back then I was fifteen and stupid and I craved the attention. She counted on that and gave me no way out, and that’s how predators like her _work_.”

It took a few seconds for Dave to calm down, and he sighed as he climbed back onto the bed. He reached over and took Hal’s hand in his own. “I’m sorry,”

“It’s alright. I know it’s a lot to process.”

Dave got his pack of cigarettes off his sidetable, roughly pulling one out by his teeth and lighting it. He took a long drag, allowing the tension to drop from his shoulders as he exhaled. “What happened then?” he asked, tapping the embers into an ashtray.

“We kept having sex, maybe a few times a month. I was never sure how I should have felt about it. I wanted to tell my dad so he could make her stop somehow, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I mean, how do you even begin to bring up this kind of stuff to someone who hates you?” Hal fisted his hands in his hair. “He wouldn’t have believed me anyway, and she knew that. Nobody would ever believe that a woman would do this sort of shit.” He paused and rubbed at his face.

“She would even buy me things and give me money to keep me quiet, and on top of that she was still my mother figure, I sought her advice for personal problems and school, so I didn’t... want to antagonize her…” Tears welled up again. His voice cracked. “Her mind games went deep.”

Dave’s hands shook with barely contained rage as he puffed at his cig, glaring holes into the mattress.“That's fucked. She's _disgusting_.” He seethed.

Hal leaned into him and gripped at his shirt as he nodded in agreement. Dave carted a trembling hand through his hair before cupping his face and wiping his tears away.

“How long did this go on for?” he asked, voice low.

“About half a year.”

Hal sniffed and sat up straight. “It stopped because my dad did eventually find out, and he was distraught. It messed everything up in our household, so much that I was in danger if I stayed there any longer, I had to get out as soon as I could so I made arrangements to graduate from high school early, at sixteen. “

He was intentionally being vague. There were gruesome details he was leaving out now, but he didn't even want to approach all that. It felt like too much.

“And even though Julie and I didn’t speak ever again after that, she fucking paid for my college. My dad was... out of my life because of this, so he wasn’t going to. That was just another aspect of _her_ , of her need for _control_ over me, that I couldn’t escape from.”

His chin was tilted up and Dave affixed him with a serious look. “She isn’t still in contact with you, is she?”

“No. I haven’t had her on my bankroll since I was twenty. I moved everything to a new account and went as far away from her as I possibly could- to California for a while, and then to Alaska.” He reached for his partner. “Where I met you.”

Dave stubbed out his cigarette and wrapped him in a firm, warm hug. Hal leaned into him and buried his face in his neck, closing his eyes. He didn’t want to cry about this anymore, he had already done enough of that over the years. Instead, he just felt _tired_.

“Oh, Hal.” Dave murmured into his hair, as he started to rock them back and forth. “I'm so sorry.” Hal heard him swallow thickly. “I can't believe someone would do that to you.” he hugged tighter, taking a shaky breath. “You don't ever have to see her again. You won't ever be used like that again, to my last breath I'll make sure of it.”

 _To my last breath_.

Hal returned the embrace and sighed heavily. Regardless of all of this, he knew he was in good hands. He had known since the second they met.

“It’s left lasting effects,” Hal said quietly, after a few seconds. “I can barely have sex with anybody without descending into a panic attack. I can keep it down if I try, but it’s difficult. That’s why I acted the way I did last week. I tried to ignore it, I really did.”

Dave pulled back. “You shouldn't ignore something like that-”

Hal narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “-What else am I supposed to do, let the shit she’s done to me effect me forever?! It's already ruined one other relationship with a girlfriend in college, I…” he couldn't really find words anymore. “... I just don't want for the same to happen with you.”

Dave opened his mouth as if to say something combative, but looked away and appeared to change his mind.

“What is it that you don't like?” He asked. “Specifically, if you can.”

“I don’t know if I have specifics.” Hal leaned back on his hands and looked at the ceiling. “I’m fine with making out with someone but second base and further makes me nervous. It gets worse if I feel out of control of myself like I'm cornered or pinned, especially anything having to do with alcohol.”

“Okay.”

“That's it, I guess.” He sighed, laying back on the bed. “I’ve said what I came to say. It's a lot to take in, I'm sorry.”

Dave reached over to remove his glasses, folding them and placing them on his side table. “Don't be sorry. Thank you for telling me. At least it's off your chest now.”

“Mm.” Hal gratefully let his head roll to the side and his eyes slipped shut, but as tired as he was he couldn't make himself relax. He just didn't want to think about this anymore.

 

He opened his eyes to see a blurry visage of Dave pulling another cigarette out of its carton and a stupid thought popped into his mind.

“You usually smoke for stress relief, don't you?” Hal asked, before he could stop himself.

Dave paused with a cig in his teeth and removed it. “Usually.” he agreed. “Why?”

“Can I try one?”

“Sure, but you'd probably just cough. …Actually, sit up and face me. I have an idea.”

Dave placed the cigarette between his teeth again and a few scrapes of the lighter wheel bore sparks until a flame was coaxed out. He lit the cig and clicked the lighter closed, motioning for Hal to sit closer. He did so, scooting forward until their knees were touching. At this proximity the smell of smoke drifted into his nostrils, sharp and bitter- it would have been vaguely unpleasant a few years ago but he had grown to associate it so much with Dave that it was now more neutral and familiar than anything else.

Dave took a drag and held it, quickly moving the cig out of the way to lean in until their faces were an inch apart, close enough for Hal to be able to count his eyelashes. A thumb gently pulled down against his chin and he let his mouth open, cheeks tingeing pink as he realized what this ‘idea’ was.

“Inhale.” Dave whispered, before smoke filtered out of his lips and hit Hal’s own.

Hal drew in a slow breath and wrinkled his nose as it immediately hit at the back of his throat and prickled hotly, feeling almost like he was breathing in tiny thorns. He tensed a little as he fought the urge to cough but managed to hold the air in his lungs before taking an unsteady exhale, making smoke curl sideways then upwards as it drifted towards the ceiling. They paused a few seconds to watch it dissipate before Dave looked at him.

“Yeah, or nah?”

He took a few breaths of clean air as he thought on his answer. It certainly didn’t taste as bad as he was expecting. There was also a level of intimacy that left his heart fluttering, and he wouldn’t mind more of that.

He then understood Dave’s thought process- On the surface it might seem a little tone-deaf to want to do something so suggestive right after their earlier conversation, but Dave also knew that Hal was upset and looking to build trust in him to move past his pain. Despite his fears, Hal still sought comfort in intimacy just like anybody else in love, and this gesture was careful enough to allow him that without worrying himself into a corner.

“It’s weird, but I see the benefits.” Hal said, allowing an embarrassed smile to creep on his face.

“You’re gonna need a few more hits to really feel anything.” Dave leaned back to give the cig a tap on his ashtray before he put it to his mouth again.

“Okay,” Hal whispered, leaning forward.

He took in a second lungful, then a third. A warm feeling started to spread pleasantly across his skin and he felt tense muscles begin to loosen. He rested his head on Dave’s shoulder as he basked in the effects and they paused for a moment in silence to look out the window. Hal quietly asked for more and received a nod before sitting back up.

Smoke was poured into his mouth a fourth time. They had, perhaps consciously, drawn closer together until there was only the thinnest sliver of air between their lips. Dave waited for him to exhale before closing that gap lightly, questioningly. Hal leaned into him in consent and they shared a kiss that was soft and unhurried, in a stark contrast to their first. The contrast between dry smoke and wet lips gave him goosebumps.

They continued, burning through that cig and lighting up a second one, kissing lazily in between their shared breaths. Their fingers brushed against arms, necks, jawlines, not necessarily in that order. They didn’t want to separate anymore while Dave took drags, so Hal scooted forward to sit on his lap, pressing his lips to Dave’s cheek and temple whenever he turned his head sideways to pull from the cig, which now lay in the ashtray most of the time since both his hands were usually occupied.

There was enough smoke hanging in the air to make the whole room a little blurry. The light from the streetlamp outside caught on it and caused a glow, matching well with Hal’s current state. The nicotine was filling him with a sleepy contentment that gently pulled dark thoughts away from his working memory. It felt similar to alcohol yet also had a distinct difference because he was able to focus on what he was doing instead of just letting things happen, and right now he was completely absorbed in the man in front of him.

He wound his fingers into Dave’s hair and felt a tongue skim his lip in response, he opened his mouth a bit to invite him in and they both sighed in bliss. Hal distantly registered the sizzle of the cigarette being put out before Dave’s hand returned to the back of his neck and pulled him somehow even closer than before. He was so warm.

The moment was long and slow and hazy and perfect.

He could tell that Dave was being careful; there was no real urgency in his movements and he was keeping his hands above his waist. It made his heart squeeze in gratitude, and Hal broke their kiss to brush his lips affectionately against his brow. Dave slouched and rested his forehead against his shoulder, sighing as Hal pet his hair.

A minute or two passed in silence.

“Feel a little better?” Dave murmured, words vibrating against his clavicle.

“A lot better, thanks.” Hal shifted a bit to get more comfortable and paused as his thigh touched his partner’s very obvious erection.

Oh.

He glanced down then back up, suddenly becoming hyper-aware of the way Dave’s thumbs were drawing circles on his waist, the way his breath ghosted over the hollow of his throat. Dave wasn’t indicating at all that he expected anything more but the idea was kinda tempting, and even just knowing that he was wanted left heat rapidly pooling in his stomach.

He knew this would be asking for trouble what with his fear response, but maybe it would be worth the inevitable attack. Maybe he could enjoy himself and manage keep that down altogether? It would be tough, but...

What if he just...

He slowly reached over and touched a finger at Dave's waistband, but Dave took his wrist in hand to stop him.

“That doesn't have to happen right now.”

“But-”

“Hal,” His partner pulled back and looked at him. “That's not a good idea. We literally just had a conversation about the shit you went through.”

“I know, but I still want to.”

Hal almost winced from the unconvinced frown he received.

“Don't just say that if you aren't sure.”

“I _am_ sure. Please believe me.” he said, quietly but firmly.

Dave’s expression softened and he brushed his knuckles against Hal’s arm in apology. “I'm not gonna say no, if you really want to. What do you suggest?”

Hal genuinely wasn’t expecting to hear that question, so much so that he paused, mouth slightly open, then looked down in thought.

It made sense- He knew his own boundaries and discomforts way better than Dave did at this point, so it was only appropriate for him to call the shots. But it was a question that he had never been asked, at least not in this context. He had never held any real autonomy within his own sex life before.

Well, now he did.

He shoved down nerves and took a deep breath. “What if I… just gave you a handjob, and that's it?… I mean, if- if that’s okay with you, that's all I want to do for now.” His face was practically on fire.

Dave tilted his head, expression unchanging. “Just me?”

“I’d rather leave myself out of it.” The words came easier this time. “I'm still iffy on being touched. Not that I wouldn't like you to, but… you know.”

“Right.”

Awkward silence fell between them for a few seconds, and Hal retrieved his glasses to put them back on. Through a brief spike of nerves he found it a little hard to meet his partner's eyes.

“Hey,” Dave turned his chin. “If you start to feel weird at any point, you can stop. Simple as that.”

“But then you’d be left hanging-”

“-Is that so bad?”

Hal paused. He supposed it wasn’t.

Dave started to lean back, pulling Hal with him. “I don’t care about that.” He muttered against his lips. “All I want,” They kissed as Dave settled onto the pillow. “Is for you to trust me.”

He wanted that too.

 

Hal sat up and looked down. The blue-white streetlight coming in from the partially closed blinds cast itself on his partner in thin vertical stripes. One line caught an excited glint in his eye and ran down to the subtle curve at the corner of his mouth, dropping off sharply at his jaw to wave and contour with the others along wiry muscles, shifting a little with each breath he took. Hal let his eyes follow their paths, along the dark trail of hair under his navel and the v of his hips. His boxer-briefs hugged his dick against his left hip, the light curving tightly over it like a ribbon.

Hal would’ve been content to just sit there and stare for the rest of the night.

He was brought out of his thoughts when Dave took his wrists and gently guided them forward. “Touch me,” he whispered.

“I will.” Hal replied. “You’re too good-looking, it's distracting.”

“Heh. I’m glad you like my only redeeming quality.”

“That's not true,” Hal leaned down to peck him on the lips. “You also make good pancakes.”

They laughed. He loved this man, he really did.

Hal rested his fingers on his collarbone. The light warped over his hands, making it look like they were bound against him. He touched a palm against Dave’s chest as his other hand went lower, down his ribs and across his stomach. Dave’s expression and body language remained calm but Hal felt the thump of his heart skip a little before staying at a quick, excited tempo. There was something nice about knowing that.

He tentatively dipped a thumb under his waistband, touching at where skin met coarse hair. Dave reached over presumably to take it off but Hal caught his wrist to stop him.

“Not yet,” He said softly.

Dave grinned. “I’ll try my best to be patient, sir.”

“Don't even _start_.” Hal irately slapped him on the arm as a flush grew across his face. Dave snickered and caught his hand, pressing kisses to his knuckles, but soon zeroed his attention in on Hal’s other hand as it hovered between his legs.

Hal drew a shaking finger down his bulge then pressed his palm against it, feeling its warmth through the thin fabric. Dave watched intently and took an unsteady breath when he pressed a little harder and rolled upwards, watching a wet spot appear next to the tip. He wrapped his fingers around it and squeezed once, and heard a hiss followed by quiet laughter.

“You’re quite the tease,” Dave murmured, closing an eye.

Oh, boy. He was already putting that _tone_ into his voice, and as good as it sounded it wasn’t helping with nerves. Hal swore in his head for a few seconds before replying.

“Just taking my time.” In truth he was stalling. lt was taking almost all his willpower not to leap off and bury his head into the nearest pillow and give up. But that part of him would just have to shut up and take the backseat because _he_ _wanted_ _this_.

He raised himself and gave Dave room to shimmy his boxer-briefs off. He sat back down, appreciating the view for a little bit before gliding his fingers up his partner's cock, firm and hot with blood. When he took it in hand Dave startled a bit.

“...Your hands are cold.” he explained, when Hal gave him a look.

Hal started to shrink back. “Sorry-”

“Don't apologise.” Dave reached over and guided his hand back to where it was before. “I like it. I'll like whatever you do with me, I'm not picky.” He whispered, caressing his arm. Hal felt heat spread through his veins at that implication, chasing a few of the nerves away.

He looked down and started stroking, going slow at first. Dave’s head rolled to the side and he took several quiet breaths, eyelids fluttering. Hal took a moment to absorb those reactions, subtle but tantalizing. His impulses carried him forward and he gripped a little harder, finding a steady pace, wanting more from the man beneath him and he got it easily- a shiver ran down Dave's body and his brows knitted as a vocal sigh escaped his lips. It was cut short when he clamped his mouth shut then rested his forearm across his face, scowling.

Hal recognized that expression and slowed his hand down. “Are you embarrassed?” he asked.

Dave tilted his arm and peeked at him with a single eye. “I’m, uh, not usually in this position.”

Hal blinked, then understood- Dave probably felt more at ease in a dominant role; putting himself completely at the whim of someone else, even if that someone was Hal, came with a kind of vulnerability that he might not be used to.

Maybe he shouldn't get too selfish with this.

Hal released him and leaned forward. “Look, if you’re uncomfortable-”

His arm was grabbed again. “-I didn’t say ‘stop’, Hal.”

Hal blushed at his firm tone and resumed, heart beating a little faster.

“Don’t worry so much, okay?” Dave murmured, running his hands along Hal’s thighs. “I'm comfortable if you are.” He arched his back and hummed when Hal turned his wrist on an upstroke. “Mmm, that’s nice, keep going...”

Hal was flustered but he did keep going, and they both gradually relaxed into it. While fear of sex still gnawed away at the corners of his mind, making his hands clammy and his throat tight, he was managing to keep it down and not think about it too much. Dave was providing plenty of distraction. He was getting more excited, pink dusted across his cheeks as he bit at his knuckle and breathed shakily around it, his eyes glued on where Hal was jerking him off. He kneaded at Hal’s hip, pulling him a little forward until he was leaning over with a hand on his chest for balance. Dave looked up and grinned.

“Man,” he said. He had to take a couple of shallow breaths before continuing. “If you knew how often I used to have nasty dreams about you, you'd probably think I’m some kind of pervert.”

Hal grinned back. “I’ve already thought that for years. You were never too subtle about it.”

“Can you blame me? I could never keep my thoughts straight around you.” Dave's eyes slipped shut and he inhaled through his teeth and sighed. “Squeeze me harder, c’mon-”

Hal increased his grip and slowed his hand to a torturous pace, feeling every twitch and vein along his cock, Dave tilted his head back and rolled his hips, digging his nails into Hal’s side. A low growl escaped his throat and melted into speech. “ _Yeaahhh_ , just like that-”

Hal felt his brain short-circuit from how hot that was and struggled for a second to concentrate on what he was doing.

Dave’s breath was getting a little heavier, hitching and shuddering to the rhythm of his strokes. He tensed up and swore when Hal jerked only a thumb and a finger just under the head of his dick, slowly increasing the pressure. Another shudder rolled through his body and a long string of precum leaked out and alighted on his stomach. He buried his face into his hands as his ears turned red.

Hal wondered if he should back off a little, but he got his answer when his partner dropped his hands and stared at him wildly, eyes almost black from how wide his pupils were.

 _“_ You see what you’re doing to me?” he rasped. “It's only a handjob but you’re making me into such a fucking mess, like I'm some damn teenager...” He dragged his fingers through the precum on his stomach, groaning through his teeth. “But I can't help it, I’m so fucking desperate, I’ve been wanting those pretty hands of yours all over me for so long…”

Hal felt those words slither their way into his ears and straight down his spine. He hadn’t anticipated that Dave of all people would be this talkative during sex. Not like he minded at _all_ , who would? He could hardly believe that Dave was so openly allowing him to see him like this, and all the change at once was a little overwhelming.

“God, you’re so…” Unlike his partner, Hal found himself at a loss for words and chose instead to lean forward and kiss him. Dave rumbled contentedly against his lips, pulling him closer until their bodies were flush. But there was something about the pressure that put against his lungs that made the anxiety he had previously kept down drench his system like ice water, and he immediately pushed himself off to sit back up, stilling his hand for a moment and trying to catch his breath, trying to not let his throat constrict.

Damn it.

Dave raised himself onto his elbows, blinking as if waking up. “You doing alright?”

Hal laughed nervously and pushed his hair out of his face. His hands were visibly shaking. “Y-yeah, yes, give me a second.” He looked at the wall in front of him and took several breaths, then shook out his wrists, waiting for the adrenaline to fade to manageable levels. _Really, Hal._ he told himself. _You’re jerking someone off, not facing a firing squad. There’s no threat here, relax._

Dave idly drew patterns across his leg with a finger for a minute. It helped.

Hal composed himself and sighed, looking back down. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s no big deal. Do you want to stop?” Dave started to sit up but a hand was pressed onto his chest and he laid back again.

“No, I can do this.” Hal ran his knuckles lightly up the underside of his partner’s dick, then made a tight grip around it with his thumb and middle finger and dragged downwards. He liked how that made Dave tense and swallow down a noise.

“Are you sure?” Dave breathed, dropping his eyelids as a coy smile grew on his face. “I could take care of the rest while you watch.”

Oh, that was tempting. Hal actually considered it for a second before he gripped fully and resumed his previous pace. “I’d rather finish you off myself.”

Fingernails scraped at his thighs. “I’m not complaining.”

In very little time Hal was getting him back to the place he was before, while Dave murmured encouragement and made these gorgeous, breathy sounds. He gazed at Hal both like he was the only thing that mattered in the entire world, and like he wanted to fuck him against a wall, and that duality was just so _classic_ of him that Hal held in laughter as felt his heart almost explode with affection for this man.

This was going better than he had expected it to.

When he sped up his pace, Dave cursed and involuntarily bucked into him, making Hal dig his nails into his chest to maintain balance. He startled so hard that Hal was afraid for a second that he hurt him.

“Sorry-”

“-Do that more,” Hal’s wrist was grabbed with a shaking hand. “All the way down.”

Hal blinked in surprise then tentatively placed his nails at his partner’s collarbone and began to scratch downwards, unsure of how much pressure was appropriate. Dave snapped his eyes open and almost painfully tightened his grip on his wrist.

“ _Harder_ . Like you _mean it._ ”

He felt his mouth go dry at the command and he dug in firm, enough to leave bright red lines in his nail’s wake. He watched transfixed as Dave arched his back and let out a long groan, eyes glazing over.

 _“Yesss, yesyesyes-”_ he hissed.

Now there was something Hal didn’t know. He silently filed away that information for later.

Despite that Hal wasn’t even being touched, he found himself absorbing and mirroring his partner’s energy. His own breath was getting shorter, his heart hammering in time with the frantic pulse throbbing through the dick in his hand and the pliant, eager man attached to it. It was getting a lot harder to think among the thick haze of sex permeating his mind, and for that he was entirely grateful. He leaned forward and pressed himself to Dave again, kissing and biting at his neck and leaving just enough room for his hand to keep working.

Dave was rapidly approaching the point of no return. He wound his fingers into Hal’s hair, tossing his head back and screwing his eyes shut. His mouth hung slack before sharp pants and strings of words kept it busy, shifting from a breathless plea to something more aggressive.

“Oh fuck, Hal. Don’t stop, keep going, I'm... so close, so fucking close, just gimme more-” Hal made a near-vice with his thumb and fingers and focused on one spot and Dave yanked roughly at his hair in approval. “ _God,”_ he growled. “I can’t wait to fuck you so goddamn hard, till you can't even think, till you just _writhe_ , till you’re falling the hell apart... _just like... I am-!”_

A shock of arousal went through him at that and he moaned into Dave’s neck. He saw a healed scar that ran along the top of his shoulder and with a single-minded goal he sunk his teeth into it. Dave jerked violently and took a broken gasp of air.

“ _Jesus_ , Hal! _Fuck-!!”_ He shouted, before clapping a hand over his mouth (they had upstairs neighbors), but he made no more sound as he tumbled over the edge.

Hot fluid began to arc up onto both of them. Dave squirmed and held onto his shoulder in a death grip, still covering his mouth, panting harshly through his nose with each stream of cum that exited his cock. Hal slowed his hand down to let his partner ride through it. After some seconds, Dave sank into the mattress as the tension began to drain from his frame and Hal watched dazed as the streams lessened to a dribble that got all over his hand. It was only when Dave began to twitch and paw at his arm that Hal realized he was getting over-sensitive and finally released him.

 

They stayed there like that for a minute to catch their breath, neither moving. Hal felt the haze in his thoughts begin to clear a little and he pushed himself up, moving off his partner to sit next to him instead.

Dave gathered enough energy to crack an eye open and lifted his head just enough to look down at himself, then tiredly let it drop back against the pillow. He ran his hands up his face and laughed a little into them. “Holy shit, that was…” He trailed off before looking over at Hal. He was sitting completely still, staring hard at a corner of the bed, quietly hyperventilating.

Dave reached for him. “Hey...”

Hal heard him but among the torrents of adrenaline filtering into his veins, couldn’t remember how to speak just yet. What he had just done was now sinking in and it had him in a nervous wreck, unsure if what he was feeling was positive or negative. He jumped a mile when he felt a hand on his arm and whipped his head down to stare at it, then slowly reached for it with his own hands which were shaking like he had just drank four cups of coffee.

“I’m okay.” He whispered, voice box not working. “It’s happening again. I just need a minute.”

Dave gave him a distressed look then made to sit up and grabbed a couple of tissues from a box on his nightstand. He quickly wiped semen off Hal’s hand and himself, then discarded them and wrapped his arms around his partner, pulling him so he was sitting back against his chest. Hal gratefully leaned into him and listened to his own heart hammer in his ears as they waited for a bit.

Eventually he got a hold of himself enough to speak and breathe normally. He tilted his head back to find Dave looking at him, expression grim.

“Hal,” He rasped. “Is any of this my fault? Did I do or say something?”

“No, it’s an automatic reaction. I’ll just have to deal with it.” Hal paused to cough, trying to get the last of the tension in his trachea out. “It'll get better with time and practice.”

Dave pursed his lips. “I dont know if I like seeing you like that, but...Alright. You know yourself best." He paused. "So, are you gonna…?” he then questioned, glancing downward.

“Nahhh, I’ll be fine.” Hal had been sporting a raging hard-on for who knows how long at this point. He didn’t really feel like dealing with it though, a little afraid that it might induce more weird anxiety-guilt if he did. Besides, sleep sounded a lot more appealing at the moment.

They settled down under the covers and spooned. It was comfy.

“How’re you feeling?” Lips affectionately brushed the back of his neck.

“I’m feeling good. That was really nice.” Hal answered, cheeks coloring.

“It… really was. I’m glad you offered that.” Dave agreed quietly. “It was also weirdly intense. Ow.” Hal felt him shift a bit, and turned to see that he was touching at his inside shoulder. “I liked that burst of confidence you got at the end.” he said, a smile playing on his face.

Hal moved Dave’s hair out of the way, finding his own red teeth marks. He felt his stomach drop a bit as he remembered. “Oh, god, uh… I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. That’s not bleeding, is it?” He stammered, trying to lean closer to see. He had discarded his glasses already and couldn’t tell.

“It’s not. I’ve had worse.” Dave encouraged him to lie back down, pulling him close again.

“Figures,” Hal muttered, eyes closing. A stray thought then occurred to him. “I didn't think you'd be such a chatterbox,” he added.

“Hn. I didn't used to be, but after getting a lot of requests, I made it a habit.”

Hal snorted. “Of course _you’d_ get ‘requests’.”

Dave nuzzled into the space between his neck and the pillow. “I could tell that you liked it.”

 _God, yes_ . “A little.” Hal said lightly, trying to shoulder his partner away once lips started roaming his neck. “You could work on your eloquence- ffft, stop _,_ that tickles-!” He tried unsuccessfully to curl inward to escape.

“I'd like to see you try to be eloquent after I find what makes you tick.” Dave purred, biting his earlobe and running a finger along his waistband.

Hal ignored the goosebumps that created and turned over to cover his partner’s mouth and push him away, laughing. “Quit flirting and let me sleep, asshole!” Dave licked his hand and he withdrew it, wiping it on the bed sheet.

“Classy.” Hal observed dryly, but snuggled up to him anyway. Dave kissed his forehead and they started to doze off, before Hal remembered one more thing he wanted to say.

“Thank you,” He murmured. “So much.”

Dave smiled against his temple. “I'd do anything for you. All you have to do is ask.”

“Heh.” Hal felt his heart explode again and a tear or two might have escaped.

 

He had a lot to think about as he drifted off to sleep.

He was so tired that his thoughts didn’t have much coherency outside of several detached images and concepts. Dave squeezing his hand, looking at him with wild, protective anger directed at a woman who should be in jail, saying his name with a voice thick with emotion while holding him. A brush of lips as they smoked, hands being sensual without being demanding. Blue light matching blue eyes like a monochrome photograph. Dave’s surprisingly candid flavor of dirty talk, focusing on how desperate he was, how badly Hal was needed. The way his pulse hammered under Hal’s tongue as he willingly gave up the last bits of his composure. How he still found a way to push Hal’s buttons and irritate him, even while basking in afterglow.

 _‘To my last breath’_ is what Dave had said while comforting him, and he was a man of his word. He saw his promises through to their end and even beyond that. Hal became slightly more alert as he mulled over that phrase, and he noted the weight it carried - They both knew, in some unspoken capacity, that they would never feel this way about another person again, had probably never even felt this way about another person _before_ . What they had between them, the iron-clad foundation of their friendship, the effortless ease of their working dynamic, and the clumsy but genuine way with which they were currently navigating intimacy, was quite literally a _once-in-a-lifetime event._

They both knew the significance of it. Hal felt it, tonight, in the things they both said and didn’t say. In the ways they both touched and didn’t touch each other. In the facial expressions, the tones of voices. It hung in the air around them like the smoke from earlier and formed a singular idea summed best in three words.

 

 _‘I love you,’_ Hal found himself mouthing into Dave’s chest, meaning it with all his heart and soul, concurrently thinking it as loud as he could. Dave, of course, didn’t hear or notice, but he didn’t need to - Hal knew he could sense it, had been sensing it the entirety of the past hour, in the exact way that he did.

As he slipped out of the waking world, Hal’s brain sleepily mushed together those two phrases into a slightly corny, but still meaningful whole:

_Until my last breath, I will love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, fuck. this chapter was a beast, and was probably one of the most difficult ones to write. A lot of it comes from a very personal place - I am not a CSA or even an SA victim, but for years I've struggled with intense fear and anxiety in sexual situations. It's a very frustrating condition but I've been lucky enough to have a loving and patient partner who continues to work with me through it.
> 
> This chap could have been a lot more nasty but I wanted to keep it soft, for narrative purposes. More direct nasty will probably be in the final one. ;D
> 
> ...And speaking of that, it might be a while before the final chapter shows up. Anywhere from a month to multiple months. I apologize in advance but you know how life gets in the way. I hope this monster chap can tide yall over in the mean time!!!!
> 
> See you guys soon!!! <3 <3 <3


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